


Boba Fett: Restitution

by Apokalyptik



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Boba Fett AU, Boba Fett as conceived solely within the Original Trilogy, Din Djarin is everything I thought Boba would be, F/M, Fett is sexiest when mysterious not a clone, Just my opinion though, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:07:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 25,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23787577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apokalyptik/pseuds/Apokalyptik
Summary: "No disintegrations" takes on a new meaning for Boba Fett when Darth Vader discovers the emotions Fett is hiding. As cold and ruthless a bounty hunter he is, can Fett preserve his reputation and live with his betrayal against the one he secretly loves?This is Boba Fett as I thought of him from the Original Trilogy alone. Sorry, Fett's no clone to me. :)
Relationships: Boba Fett/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 43





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I published this work on Fanfiction.net between 2008 and 2011 (yikes!). Now that The Mandalorian has come out, I feel like the world has suddenly revealed its love of reticent helmeted mystery men in armour, and I am not alone! I decided to re-edit and flesh some things out for this version on AO3. 
> 
> As I said in the summary, Fett's backstory here does NOT align with the prequels or the Clone Wars. Before these movies/shows came out, I spent a good portion of the 80s and 90s making up Boba Fett backstories as a deadly Mandalorian, so please don't be offended that I've ignored everything that has come out about him as a clone of Jango Fett's. (I can't stand that storyline). Interestingly, Din Djarin is almost exactly how I pictured Boba Fett to be, though I did imagine Fett to be a shade meaner. Well, here goes ...

“W-why are you doing this?” she stammered, stunned by the blow. Boba Fett had slammed her against the wall to hold her still. Perhaps it would have been easier if she cooperated, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t understand the betrayal. After all the years she had known him, she never thought he would hurt her.

Years ago, when she first came to be a slave mechanic in Jabba’s shipyard, Greta had first feared him as everyone did. He had a reputation that kept others wary of his presence. He was deadly – and the entire galaxy knew it. Yet, through all her lonely and painful years in the palace, it was ironically her moments with the bounty hunter that brought her the most comfort. Over the course of seven years, a unique and discrete relationship grew between them through subtle kindnesses and brief conversations. Greta couldn't be sure, but she noticed that he seemed to prefer her company in the palace over anyone else - even his customary solitude. Some nights, he would find her in the shipyard after hours and they would work on the Slave I together. Sometimes, they talked. Sometimes, he acknowledged her in the hall with a look her way. And even though she could not see his face, she could tell by now when he was looking at her.

All those memories seemed worthless now as he pinned her against a wall in his holding cell with one hand on her neck. She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t breathe. She could only rasp out a pathetic whisper, “Boba, please . . . !”

“You _will_ do as I say,” he growled. He let go of her roughly and looked at her momentarily, as though he were struggling with himself. Before Greta could speak, he turned from her and slammed the cell door shut behind him.

Greta, shaking and white, slowly sank to the floor. Tears fell from her eyes – ones she had held back from showing him, believing he would despise her more for this weakness. Never had she felt so alone, for all the terrible years she had spent in Jabba’s palace. It didn’t make sense why he was treating her like this. For years, he had been a calm, steady presence in her life, one who never hastened to anger but did everything with such precise control. Perhaps he was an impostor? Someone who wore a replica of his armor? Heavily, Greta knew in her heart that this man was him: his posture, intonations, his movements all belonged to the Boba Fett she knew, this man whom she had loved for so long.

And now she felt ashamed of her feelings, afraid they were built on nothing but a self-made delusion. She couldn’t be sure of anything she knew about him now.

On the floor, in her confusion and sorrow, Greta wept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a teaser of a chapter! There are 15 chapters in whole. I am currently re-editing them for logic and clarity, so will be updating soon! 
> 
> Please let me know what y'all think. :)


	2. self-doubt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If there was a job Fett didn't want, this would be it.

He heard her weeping softly. It came through the intercom linked to his helmet.

Standing in the cockpit, Boba stared into the darkness of space and switched off the link. A sickening feeling that he could not name washed over him as his thoughts recalled the look on her face.

_Fear._ _Hurt._ _Disgust._

He never thought it would affect him like this. He _needed_ to treat her like his other prisoners. He had to prove to himself that he could do it, that he wasn’t weak. It was a liability for him to feel this way about her. Feelings like these made people soft, made them foolish. He promised himself he would never be affected by attachment to anyone or anything.

But here he was, slightly trembling at the force of his conflicted feelings, angry that he could not overcome this – this weakness – for her.

_How would she ever forgive me?_

Boba Fett was, for the first time, taken aback by his own thoughts and feelings. Something hidden beneath the Mandalorian armor and unmistakably human had pushed its way into his guarded heart. It had come long before he even realized it existed. Angrily, he pushed the thought away and steeled himself for the inevitable. He would hand her over to Vader, and it would be over.

The thought made him uneasy, but he held tightly to it still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another teeny chapter, just to get ya goin'. More to come!


	3. like hard merchandise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lethia, the one person in the palace who would miss Greta, tries to find answers about her disappearance.

_Back on Tatooine, in Jabba the Hutt’s filthy palace . . ._

A young girl, dressed in white and holding a water pitcher, hovered by a dark corner of the audience chamber. She peered out of the darkness wearing a grim expression. Jabba was tormenting a dancer on the floor and everyone in the chamber knew one thing: The dancer wouldn’t last long today. She was entertaining the Hutt far too well, and the air was electric.

Finally, the one she was waiting for appeared. “Looks like rancor be fed today,” said the little Gamorrean thickly. Lethia ignored his remark. She already knew the dancer’s fate and didn’t want to dwell on it. “Do you have any news?”

The Gamorrean grunted, “I have.”

“So, let’s have it.”

“Pay first. Talk after,” he replied. Lethia narrowed her eyes and hissed, “I already did.”

“Den no talk,” he said, smiling. Anger flashed in the girl’s eyes. Despite her size, she was older than people thought and hardly as innocent as she looked. Her vibroblade was already edged into his side, next to his heart. “Scum, tell me what’s happened to Greta.”

The Gamorrean shuffled uncomfortably on his feet, then began quietly. “Shipyard mates. Dey say she was took. . .“ his voice trailed off. Lethia gave him an impatient look and he bent closer in with a whisper. “. . . dey say was Boba Fett. He tooks her, like she was hard merchandise.”

Lethia stared incredulously. “Boba Fett? You sure?”

“Dat wat Zengling and Fink says. Saw Fett hold blaster to her. Greta with cuffs - into Slave I.”

Lethia shook her head. “I can’t believe it.” Her thoughts were interrupted with a raucous laughter and a piercing scream. The rancor had his meal. The Gamorrean shrugged. “Well, dat his job, ain’t it? He bounty hunter.”

“The price must have been high,” she mumbled.

After the Gamorrean left, Lethia tried to make sense of what had happened. Someone had placed a bounty on Greta’s head – one big enough to tempt Boba Fett into taking it. It didn’t seem right, though; from what she knew, Fett only took certain bounties that agreed with his sense of justice. What could Greta, of all people, have done to cross him?

She thought of Greta, who was like the older sister she never had. She was gentle and sweet, but feisty when she had to be. Years of slavery had given her a tougher skin when push came to shove. But it seemed unlikely that Greta could have incurred anyone’s wrath. In the past, Greta had been a mechanic’s daughter and a slave for most of her life. At Jabba’s palace, she was one of the most diligent and skilled workers. Perhaps, she thought, Greta’s one mistake was her nonchalant “friendship” with the bounty hunter.

And she had thought Boba Fett had a “thing” for Greta. The way he hung around the shipyard, and how he would only allow her to look at his ship. _If Fett only saw Greta as his mechanic, he was an idiot_ , she thought. And now she was gone. Her only friend in this unforgiving place. Lethia gripped the vibrobrade until her nails dug into her hand.


	4. choice is made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst. Lots of angst.
> 
> Also, there might be some triggers in this chapter re: physical abuse. Fett is pretty nasty in this chapter.

Greta awoke slowly. Her right jaw was throbbing and the bruises on her arms had blackened overnight into the shape of the hands that caused them. It also didn’t help that sleeping on the floor only exacerbated the whiplash in her neck and shoulders. The pain told her immediately that the events of the night before were not a dream, that she had indeed been taken by Boba Fett, and she had lost the struggle against him. Her jaw was sore, and there was a cut on her lip that cracked when she tried to move her pasty mouth.

The lights in the cell never turned off, emitting a sharp florescence that flooded the entire cell, probably to keep prisoners in plain view at all times. Besides a small drain in the floor, there was nothing in the cell. No sink, no toilet, nothing that could be taken apart and used as a makeshift weapon. He certainly didn’t take any risks.

Steadying herself with the wall, Greta limped over to the door, a thick slab of steel with no windows and no latches. She felt around the door, but she found nothing. Somehow, he must have surveillance output linked to the cell, or at least audio. Her cheeks flushed in anger and shame, fearful that she was nothing more to him than the other galaxy scum he had collected as hard merchandise.

 _How had this happened?_ she wondered. She remembered coming out of her quarters that night and had turned down the corridor toward the shipyard.

_Rounding the corner, she felt a hand on her shoulder and something hard at her back._

_“You’re coming with me,” said the familiar, metallic voice. Greta, confused, turned to face him, but he already had her arms in grip, twisting them behind her back. Bewildered, she fought back, struggling against his tight hold and managed to land a hard back kick on his shin guard. It did little to deter him as he lunged forward and grabbed her arm. Acting only out of panic, Greta used his pull to throw her weight against him. It was enough to knock him down on his back, but she landed hard on his chest plate. He was too quick for her, seizing both arms in his iron grip and flipping her over until he was on top. He was heavy, and she could hardly breathe, out of breath as she was._

_"You're making this difficult for yourself," he growled, visor inches from her face._

_"You're the one who told me to survive," she spat, throwing back to him the kind word of advice he himself had given her months ago._

_Fett was eerily still. Then replied without emotion: "Good. You listened."_

_Still pinned beneath him, Greta stared back at his visor with a look that could slice him in two._

_Slowly, he raised his blaster to her throat, and getting up on his feet, he motioned with the gun, "Stand up."_

_Greta did so reluctantly, and before he could confine her in cuffs, she gave him a brutal elbow to the jaw. It probably hurt her more than it did him, but it sent him back a few steps. Before she could turn to run, she felt the hard butt of his blaster hitting her jaw from the right. It had sent her sprawling on the floor._

_As quickly as it had happened, the bounty hunter was kneeling over her, assessing her jaw. It seemed as though he was making sure it wasn’t anything serious. Then, when satisfied, he cuffed her wrists. Greta winced as he yanked her to her feet, feeling the bite of the binders tear at her skin as he pushed her down the corridor to the shipyard. She had stumbled up the ramp into the Slave I, unsure of what lay ahead of her. Her question seemed answered when he brought her to the holding cells. Incredulous, Greta confronted him again. “This isn’t like you, Boba.”_

_Ignoring her, Fett dragged her into the cell by the cuffs until she lost balance and fell. “This is exactly who I am,” he growled, picking her up and pinning her against the wall . . ._

Greta snapped out of the memory when the cell door began to open. She backed away into the farthest corner, unsure of what he might do.

“Time to go,” he said flatly. “Lord Vader is waiting.”

Greta’s mouth gaped slightly in surprise. “You’re taking me to – no . . . you can’t be.” She shrank from him even more. The betrayal was worse than she’d imagined.

Fett clenched his jaw. She would not make this easy for him. Without hesitation, he pointed his blaster at her. Greta's eyes lowered to the gun in his hand, then back up to his visor. He could see her heartbreak written all over her lovely face, an arsenal more powerful than any weapon. Beneath the helmet, he looked away. To his surprise, Greta closed the distance between then and wrapped both hands around the blaster and his hand.

“Do it,” she said. It didn’t matter if she lived or died now; he was going to hand her over to Darth Vader – and _that_ was worse than death.

It took Fett a moment to respond, and when he did he spoke in a low voice. “You’re not worth anything to me dead.” He moved so quickly, she barely realized he had put her in cuffs – again.

“Son of a bitch,” she whispered. The anger, the hurt, the betrayal bubbled over. She struggled in his grasp again, kicking him wherever she could, now yelling, “You son of a bitch!”

With a jerk, he pulled her out of the cell and down the hall.

She said nothing as she walked, unable to accept her fate and the truth of Boba Fett’s ruthlessness. She found it difficult to reconcile the two Bobas she now knew. It didn’t help either that old memories kept resurfacing, her mind unable to understand what was happening. What she remembered didn't add up to what was happening now. 

She was thinking of the first time he had touched her, his hand grazing her lower back as they walked down to Jabba’s audience chamber. There was something instinctively protective about the gesture, and it had sent a spark racing along her spine. Or, the time she had developed cave blindness from lack of exposure to natural light. She had woken up early one morning to find herself absolutely sightless. Her friend, Lethia, knowing that Jabba threw infirm slaves to the rancor, bravely sought out the bounty hunter for help. He came quickly to her side, his gloved hands lightly examining her face and eyes. She remembered the smell of blasterfire and fuel. The memories could not be false. She had to try again.

They were near the off-ramp when she quietly asked, “Was it something I did? Something I said?” She had boldly turned to face him, knowing full well what he was capable of.

Boba smiled bitterly beneath the visor. None of this was her fault. Her eyes were pleading – the same look that drew compassion from him; that unlocked his emotions and made him unbearably weak, unbearably human. He could not afford showing any weakness now, especially not at Vader’s doorstep.

“Vader placed the bounty on you; I took the job.” he said finally. “This is what I do; who I am.”

“But you don’t have to do this,” she said, searching for his eyes behind the visor. “You _chose_ to take the job.”

“You presume there’s a reason why I shouldn’t have,” he said coldly.

Greta’s face darkened. So there it was. He had spoken the fear that had been eating at her ever since he captured her.

“I guess I did,” she replied remorsefully. “I was wrong.”

* * *

Several Stormtroopers and a Crimson Guard greeted them in the landing bay. As Greta stepped out of the Slave I, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end, chilled by the shielded and visored gaze that surrounded her. It seemed to be a pattern, being held captive by men who discarded compassion and sympathy and all the things that made them human. These men, exchanging their faces for masks, seemed destined to rule her life.

And this was it. Boba Fett had brought her to Darth Vader's Star Destroyer, and she watched helplessly as he spoke to the Crimson Guard, who seemed to be studying her. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but one of them handed Fett a credit chip and that was all she needed to know. Without a word or even a glance her way, Fett nodded to the guards, and left. Greta watched as he walked stiffly into the ship, his hands clenched into fists until the ramp began to close.

Greta, to put it lightly, was falling apart inwardly. Though she didn’t dare show it, she felt the hole in her gut widen and grow until it consumed everything. Then, everything went numb. The guards took her by the arms and led her deeper into the Star Destroyer. She hardly heard the _Slave I’_ s jets fire, launching it into space as her heart sank deeper into the consuming darkness. By the time the spaceport doors closed, her heart had completely disappeared.


	5. heartstrings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing good comes out of disobeying Darth Vader.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point, I'd like to mention that there will be a lot of flashbacks from this point on. The story flips back and forth to a lot of past memories, which are marked in italics. I hope you don't find this too confusing!

Darth Vader waited silently in the Emperor’s throne room for the prisoner. It amused him how easily the bounty hunter had succumbed. Admittedly, Fett was good at hiding his emotions, but not nearly good enough to deceive the Dark Lord. The moment Fett had turned his back on the girl, Vader detected faint waves of guilt and self-loathing. Vader smiled to himself. How easy it was to manipulate others into submission when pride was involved.

Now that he had tapped into Fett’s true weakness, he would have control over the bounty hunter as he wished. 

Previously, Fett had openly disobeyed Vader, distintegrating a bounty when he was to keep the hunted alive. Vader had seen the move as direct defiance and disregard for his power and status. And he would have to make an example out of him.

On one of Fett’s more recent visits, Vader had probed his mind for anything he could use against the bounty hunter. At first, all he found were tasks, strategies and plans – logistics laid out for his most current job. It impressed him how methodical and efficient the hunter was. Then, beneath the hardened layers, Vader found what he was looking for: tell-tale images of a young woman that spoke of a long-repressed affection – her beautiful smile, the way she looked at him, the curiosity of her eyes . . . all soundless memories imprinted with a guarded tenderness.

 _Ah, so one of the most feared men in the galaxy is in love,_ he thought _. How quaint_. And it amused him even more to see that the hunter was hardly aware of his deepening feelings for this woman.

 _Greta_. Her name formed wordlessly as an aura belonging to Fett’s mental images. She was a slave in Jabba’s palace; a mechanic and nothing remarkable. _Pathetic_ , he thought. _She wears emotions on her sleeve_.

By the end of Fett’s visit, Vader had everything he needed to secure his power over the hunter. This Greta would give him access to the heartstrings Fett so carefully guarded. And he was right.

_“A word before you go,” Vader had said. “You have been in my service for many years now. But all this may change. I have come to believe you may no longer be suitable for my patronage.”_

_Fett stopped and stood silently. “Why is that?”_

_“You’ve grown soft, Fett,” he hissed. “You’ve let yourself be tainted by the stain of human emotion.”_

_“What do you mean?” Fett replied tersely._

_“Who is – “ Vader turned and looked out to the great expanse of space, “Greta?”_

_The sound of her name coming from Vader’s dark voice sent a chill through Fett’s spine. Attempting to deny his reaction, Fett replied flatly, “Jabba’s slave.”_

_“Yes. Someone you have known for a long time, Fett.” Vader turned to look at the hunter, who looked still but who emitted a quickening of the pulse so faint only someone such as the Dark Lord could detect it. “Someone you have feelings for.” Vader spat the last words as though they were poison._

_“I have feelings for no one,” Fett quickly denied._

_“Then why does your mind contain such lovely pictures of this woman, coloured by the same kind of inferior energy we recognize as love?”_

_Fett clenched his fists as Vader continued to dig. “You cannot deny what I have seen, bounty hunter,” Vader continued. “How can I trust you if you can let yourself become so weak?” he spat. The accusation stung Fett more than he let on. Of course, Vader knew just how his words would affect him. Fett was the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy, and the most feared. And Vader knew the man’s weakness was in his pride of being the best, the strongest – and never the weaker._

_“You want to prove to me you are still worthy of my patronage?” Vader toyed, now wrapping the final part of Fett’s pride around his finger, “Bring me the girl.”_

_Vader sensed a spike of emotion in the hunter. The request had discernibly disturbed him. “Bring me this Greta, and I will ensure your reputation remains intact.”_

_For a moment, Fett was silent, his fingers digging deeper into his fists until at last he answered, “As you wish.”_

_Their conversation had ended there, with Boba Fett turning to fulfill the agreement, and Darth Vader smiling under his mask. How pathetic of Fett to be so easily manipulated by his pride and so eager to betray someone he loved._

And Fett had done it. Back to the present, Vader’s thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of the Stormtroopers and the girl he had asked Boba Fett to bring. Just as he saw her image in the hunter’s thoughts, she was nothing remarkable: small, dirty, and as he could sense – fearful. Yes, that sweet and sickly energy was there, along with something else: hatred. 

The Dark Lord watched as Fett's slave mechanic was thrown at his feet by the guards. “Greta,” he said in his harsh, metallic tone. “Welcome.”

The young woman slowly raised her head to face him, her hands now balled into fists. As she looked up at the Dark Lord, her eyes narrowed and her lips pressed into a thin line, as though ready for a fight. _How amusing_ , he thought. Such a different reaction than the one he sensed from her as a moment ago! Then, she seemed so frail. Now – Vader smiled – the anger and hatred of the betrayal had begun its process, rooting out the weaknesses of human nature. She would make an excellent subject for what he had in mind.

“Why have you asked for me?” she asked, boldly.

“Don’t take offense, child,” Vader began. “But this hardly has anything to do with you.”

Greta looked at him incredulously. “Boba Fett?”

“Who else?” said Vader. “My reward for his good service to me is to make him as complete and as lethal a hunter as he could ever be.”

“Then why me?” Greta asked, confused. “How is my capture your reward to him?”

Vader chuckled. “There is much for you to understand about the ways of men in this galaxy. Those who wish to gain power do so by force, harnessing the strongest human emotions, like anger, jealousy and rage.”

“I’ve heard this before,” Greta spat. “You think compassion, kindness and love are weaknesses. It’s sad to think your entire empire is based on these assumptions, that you keep your legion of men under this authority, turning them into slaves to their own arrogance.” The Dark Lord audibly chuckled, the sound rumbling from the vocoder of his helmet. The girl had spirit, he thought. 

"A pretty speech, for one so young," Vader drawled. "But you cannot deny the truth. Men like Boba Fett only recognize the way to true power and success. ” The truth of Vader's words cut deeply and there was no denying it. In her disappointment, Greta lowered her head in silent agreement.

He continued. “Yes, you understand how it is. Now you see how this has nothing to do with you. You are of no importance to _him_ or me, but I have already found a suitable place for you here.”

Greta swallowed thickly, her mouth growing dry as the terror she suppressed gnawed its way from her belly to her throat. She tried to speak boldly, but she could barely whisper, “What will you do with me?”

“You, child,” he said proudly, “will be among the many privileged to take part in the building of this empire. You will help us discover new ways to conquer the galaxy and show us what our technology can do to the human body.”

Greta felt the tide of fear beginning to overwhelm her, no matter how hard she tried to hold it back. She had heard rumours - rumours of torture, cybernetic enhancements, brainwashing . . . No one came out of an Imperial lab in once piece.

The pronouncement of her fate left her feeling only the dread of the future, overshadowing even her previous anger at Fett’s betrayal. Only the thought of needles and knives remained, and Greta threw up.

Vader smiled. Her fear was endearing. “Take her to the lab,” he ordered. “Be proud, Greta. You are about to become part of a great cause.”


	6. lethia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jabba's palace never fails to entertain.

Several months went by since Greta was taken away, and life at the palace continued, barely noting her absence. Galaxy scum came and went. New slaves were sold and bought. Bounty hunters collected their credits. The only thing different was that Boba Fett was hardly seen there anymore.

Lethia served water in the audience chamber as usual, but her expression had hardened. Her once porcelain skin was now thin and drawn over her cheekbones. It had not been easy for her to accept Greta’s disappearance and the loneliness which came with her absence.

Nine years ago, when she was only six, Lethia had been taken to Jabba as a slave. Her father, a moisture farmer on Jabba’s land, had been terminated for not producing enough crop and she, still in the burning house, was pulled out by an ugly Twi’lek only to be presented to the Hutt in hopes of gaining a few credits. Fortunately for her, Jabba’s slave mechanic had seen the small, shivering girl and felt at that moment a need to rescue her.

_The fat Hutt laughed at the child with the silver-blond hair. “What should we do with her?” he asked the audience. The room shook with the cries of his slimy clientele._

_"Feed her to the rancor!”_

_"Bake her in the sun!”_

_“Tear her apart!”_

_A steady female voice interrupted the mob. “Let her live.”_

_The crowd parted as Greta approached the Hutt’s throne, careful not to pause over the trapdoor. She was wearing a mechanic’s jumpsuit, soiled from engine grease and spattered fuel. The Hutt’s watery eyes stared. Her proposition intrigued him._

_“Why? Her father owed me millions of credits in moisture. I will do as I please to his daughter.”_

_“She grew up on a moisture farm. She knows all about it – how to handle it and store it with the utmost care.”_

_"What do I need with a moisture connoisseur?”_

_"Why wouldn’t you need one, oh great Hutt?” The fat worm wiggled a bit, visibly showing his delight at being flattered. “Your stores of moisture are unparalleled in the galaxy, despite this dry planet. And you of all Hutts know how precious moisture is. Your current slaves lose gallons by not storing it properly. You don’t want all of your precious moisture to evaporate, now would you?”_

_Lethia, though then only a child, chimed in. “Yes. I was my father’s water keeper. He taught me how to conserve every drop and to practice the best storage protocol.”_

_The Hutt licked his oversized lips, and after a long, agonizing silence, he sputtered, “Very well.” Jabba then looked at Greta. “Mechanic, since you’re so willing to save this one, you be in charge of her. Show her to the moisture silos.”_

Lethia smiled at the memory of her guardian. If it weren’t for the Hutt’s greediness and Greta’s initiative, Lethia would have become one of the rancor’s meals, or something worse. And ever since, Greta had been like a sister to her, and her only friend. So when Boba Fett entered the picture soon after, she was suspicious, being naturally possessive of the only one who was like family to her. She did not want to share her friend, especially not with a man with a reputation as widely feared as his.

She remembered how Fett would solicit her, and over the next several years, Lethia noticed the frequency of his visits, observing an attachment that had grown, unspoken, but deeply rooted. Greta, she recalled, didn’t speak of her relationship with Boba Fett. It was almost five years since he started hanging around the shipyard when Lethia decided to confront Greta about her potential feelings for the bounty hunter.

_Greta had shrugged. “It’s a working partnership, Lethe. I don’t know what else you could be suggesting.”_

_Lethia tapped the side of the moisture jug she had been holding, thinking. “He’s always watching you. I’m certain of it.”_

_Greta laughed. “Oh really? Like when?”_

_Lethia drummed her fingers, “Like, whenever you enter the great hall, he looks your way.”_

_“You can’t be certain he’s looking at me,” Greta said nonchalantly._

_“He always turns his head,” Lethia taunted, playfully._

_“Well, have you seen his eyes?”_

_Lethia kicked at the dirt. “No,” she said with a pout._

_“You don’t make a very convincing case,” laughed Greta. Lethia screwed up her face and tapped her chin, apparently deeply ruminating. Her face lit up with her next thought._

_“He always finds a way to be wherever you are. Like, all – the – time.” Lethia punctuated the last words with girlish glee. Greta sighed good-naturedly and began packing crates with parts and tools._

_“I work on his ship, silly. Sometimes he helps.”_

_“Buuut, it’s_ your _job. Why would he just stick around to help out a slave?” Lethia’s grin grew wider, fully certain she would get the truth out of Greta now._

_“He’s got control issues, I guess.” Greta was the one grinning now._

_Lethia groaned in frustration. ““Just_ tell _me, Greta,” she stamped. “Do you like him?”_

_Greta shrugged again, “There’s nothing to like or dislike. He’s just –“ She paused with a slow smile spread on her lips. Lethia grabbed her arm, almost bouncing. “He’s just what?”_

_“He helps time go by quicker. That’s all,” Greta hedged._

_Lethia stuck out her tongue. “You’re impossible!” she exclaimed. Now, propping herself up on her elbows, chin nestled on her hands, she goaded, “Just admit it. You like him. You like being around him.”_

_Greta sighed again and gently shoved passed her young friend, carrying the crates she’d been packing. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Lethe. He’s Boba Fett._ The _Boba Fett. You want to survive this place, you don’t write romances in your head about dangerous people.” Greta put the crates down and grabbed her canteen for a drink._

_The playfulness in Lethia’s eyes dimmed, her mood more somber. “Are you afraid of him?” She asked quietly._

_Greta looked down and tapped the side of the canteen with her fingers. “A little, yes. I don’t doubt his reputation. I’ve seen all of his bounties from Jabba claimed. He never loses. Ever.”_

_"He’s like a droid,” Lethia said off-handedly. Her eyes opened wide as a thought occurred to her. “Do you think he really_ is _one? That’s he’s not a man after all?”_

_Greta laughed. “Maybe.” She was joking, but her tone was soft, contemplative. “But he isn’t.”_

_“How do you know?”_

_“I don’t know how, Lethe. Little things, I guess.”_

_“What little things?”_

_Greta had grown silent, staring strangely off into the shipyard as though she were compiling a list. She shook her head, letting out tired sigh. “I don’t know. Just give it a rest Lethe.” A flush was rising from Greta’s neck into her cheeks. Lethia could guess, but she did not know that Greta had been thinking about Boba Fett and the moments he would touch her, or watch her – even the ways he spoke to her._

_“Ok,” said Lethia rather disappointedly. “But doesn’t it make you think of, you know, what_ could _happen?”_

_G_ _reta smiled softly to her companion, although it was sadness Lethia saw in her eyes.“What’s the point? Hope isn’t useful for people like us, Lethe. The only thing I’m trying to do is stay alive.”_

At present, a drunken stormtrooper wandered over to the bar, demanding a glass of moisture and subsequently interrupting her thoughts. He was talking loudly when Lethia approached, banging his fist on the table. He was making such a commotion that everyone around him stared. The trooper’s helmet was off, revealing a mass of sweaty hair and an ugly face – a thug. That’s what they all were, coming into the palace like they owned it.

Lethia quickly and expertly poured him a glass of moisture, of which he slammed back like cheap liquor. He hit the empty glass back on the bar and Lethia filled it again. This time, the trooper drank it more slowly, while eyeing her standing next to him in her white uniform. But before the obnoxious trooper could say anything, a rough-looking fellow sat down next to him and began a conversation.

Seeing her chance to shake off the trooper’s attention, Lethia slipped away behind a pillar, listening. She knew, by experience, that the man talking to the trooper was Logos Pathan, a merchant whose wordiness certainly lived up to his name.

Usually, when stormtroopers came to the palace, Lethia would eavesdrop on their conversations, just in case she could hear anything about Greta, by the slim chance they knew anything. But over the months, Lethia had heard nothing and was losing hope about ever hearing about her friend.

Today seemed fruitless, until she heard the stormtrooper talking about Boba Fett. Her ears pricked up and she leaned more fully against the pillar to hear the details. The stormtrooper had checked behind him, making sure Fett was absent, and began:

“I’ve seen Boba Fett with Darth Vader, pal. I’m telling you that’s where he’s been all this time.”

“Fett used to hang around here a lot.” Logos said. “What’s that scum been up to?”

“Looks like he proved to Vader he was indispensable. He’s been working for the boss full time now.”

Logos nodded, sipping his drink. “Ah. A promotion,” he said sarcastically. “Explains why no one’s seen him here lately. Used to come here plenty for jobs and to get his ship repaired by some female mechanic.”

The stormtrooper smirked. “A female mechanic? He want his ship to cough and bitch at him in hyperspace?”

“She was good,” replied Logos. “Had her look at a few things on my own ship.”

“Maybe I can get her to look at a few things, too,” the stormtrooper said with a dirty grin. “Where can I find her?”

Logos sipped his drink, answering from the side of his mouth. “Sh’not here anymore.”

“Lemme guess, Fett took her for himself.”

“Dunno, might have. He stopped coming here after she disappeared.”

The stormtrooper fingered his glass, thinking. Finally, he said, “Fett’s brought a woman to Vader’s Star Destroyer.”

Lethia leaned in, hurting her neck as she strained forward. She had to hear this.

“Really?” Logos replied, disinterested. “Sure he’s brought plenty to Vader.”

“This was different. Fett never looked so reluctant to deliver a bounty before.”

“How could you tell?”

“He kept staring at her, you know – just looking her direction. When he got back in the ship, he punched the hatch command so hard, I heard the knob crack.”

“Well, maybe he didn’t get paid in full? That always makes me mad.”

The stormtrooper shook his head. “Naw – you’d be mad if Vader made you give up something you didn’t want to give up. She was real pretty. Brown hair, nice curves. Had a bracelet tattooed on her wrist.”

Lethia almost choked on her own spit.

Logos put down his glass, his interest now raised. “That’s her. The female mechanic. What happened to her?”

The stormtrooper shrugged. “It’s a shame. Vader sent her to the labs.”

“What labs? You mean, experiments?”

“Yeah. I’ve never been. Don’t go the clearance. It’s too bad. When you’re sent to the labs, don’t’ expect to come out.”

“What’s it for?”

“Not sure. I hear they take worthless humans for military experiments – to create enhanced soldiers to defeat the Rebels.” The stormtrooper held up his hands, claw-like. “Gene therapy, mecchies for hands, droid parts for eyes – to make cyborgs and other freaks.”

Logos shook his head. “You serious? That’s kriffin’ twisted, man.”

The stormtropper shrugged. “Never underestimate what lengths the Empire would go to conquer the universe, pal.”

At this point, the conversation turned to the Rebels and ways the Empire was going to wipe them all out. Lethia leaned on the pillar for support as the words _Mecchies for hands_ repeated in her mind. She was so angry, and so bewildered that her hands shook, spilling precious moisture from the pitcher. Her friend could be dead – or worse, a mindless patchwork slave to the Empire. All because of the man Greta had trusted and perhaps loved.

Lethia had made a choice. She was going to kill that bastard Boba Fett.


	7. disturbed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boba Fett is angsty and full of feels.

He was running through a thick, endless brush that resembled the forests of Endor. His target was ahead, weaving expertly through the trees at an impossible speed. For the first time, Boba Fett could not keep up. His target seemed to be anticipating his every move. Every shot he fired missed, and he was growing – amazingly – agitated. Then, as if it couldn’t get worse, the target disappeared. Every sensor from his helmet read nothing. Turning up the receptors, Fett listened, looking for changes in sounds and pitch in the air – but not even the heat sensors detected anything. It irritated him that he was having this much trouble locating his target.

He felt it before he realized what was happening. Someone had tackled him, the force knocking the wind right out of him. A blurred figure pinned him down, ramming the end of a rifle into his helmet and shoulders while aiming for his neck. Fett, despite the crushing force, managed to kick him off, but suddenly caught a glimpse of the stranger. 

Deftly getting to his feet was the figure of a Mandalorian whose armour was identical to his own, right to the dents and Wookie scalp displayed on his shoulder. Pointing his blaster at the copycat, he growled, “What is this?”

His twin said nothing, but lunged quickly with vibroblade in hand. Fett’s own reflexes were just as fast and he caught the man, turning the blade suddenly upon himself. As Fett pushed the imposter’s own hand into his chest, the stranger let out a gasp as the blood seeped out. Seconds later, he was on the ground, motionless.

For Fett, watching “himself” die disturbed him deeply. Not that he hadn’t encountered imposters before. This was one was different. He was good - as good as if he were himself. Kneeling down, Fett grasped the helmet on both sides, knowing exactly where the latches were. As he lifted the helmet from the body, a mass of soft, brown hair fell around the shoulders.

He dropped the helmet like it was a diseased thing. It was Greta’s face staring back at him.

* * *

Boba Fett awoke. Breathing heavily, he touched a hand to his helmeted head and let out a deep breath. The dream was vivid – too much, too real. And it was the first time he had dreamt in years. Seldom did Fett sleep long enough or remember dreams – if he even had them at all.

Sitting at the console of his ship and trying to forget the dream, Fett couldn’t shake off the emotions that came with it.

It had been eight months since he delivered Greta to Vader. Since then, the Dark Lord had employed him for multiple high-profile jobs that brought him a handsome pile of credits, and most importantly, the enviable reputation of being the top of his profession. He had even outsmarted five other bounty hunters in the hunt for Han Solo, not only receiving the spoils for leading the Empire to the Millennium Falcon’s location on Bepsin, but also getting the double honor of holding Solo’s carbonite-frozen body in his custody. His ship’s course was set for Tatooine, back to the place where he first doubted himself, where he would soon deliver the body to Jabba.

Tatooine. Where nothing – _and everything_ – happened.

Fett sucked in a deep breath, feeling it rebound within the helmet as he exhaled. He felt it, that knotted, twisted feeling in his chest taking hold. He had denied it, believing he could feel nothing for the things he had done.

_Greta._

Fett’s hands had balled into fists. He opened them and flexed his fingers again. He needed to believe that the girl was a nobody, just another job. But the dream! Damn it all, the dream had ruined months of suppression. It dredged up everything he should have been feeling and tore down the walls he had so carefully built.

In his frustration, Fett got up and paced the cockpit. He was angry at himself for allowing Greta into his life. What a fool he was to let his guard down. The way she smiled at him, slightly hesitant, but full of warmth – for him. He made a guttural sound and punched the captain’s seat.

As the sounds of his anger faded through the body of the ship, he was left again with the all-too familiar silence. It occurred to him for the first time how empty, how hollow the cockpit was. How many times had Greta been in this cockpit with him, marveling at the modifications to his ship and nerding out over its unique features?

_"This ship is hilarious,” she once said. It was the first time she had been inside the Slave I after having done multiple repairs to its exterior._

_He twisted around in his pilot’s chair, helmet tilted to the side. He wondered if he should growl at her for the insult, but saw that she was rapt in studying his ship, her attention totally absorbed in the ladder rungs laid flat on the floor of the cockpit. She seemed to be talking to herself, hopping over each ladder rung with a goofy smile on her face._

_When she looked up, Greta saw Fett staring, and her silly grin faded after realizing that he was listening. She fidgeted with the datapad in her hands. "I mean, it's got an interesting design. When the ship’s in flight, the interior shifts. You have ladders on the floor now, but they’ll be upright when you’re in space. With the ship parked, nothing on the inside makes sense.” She held back a laugh before she added,“It's all topsy-turvy, like a funhouse.”_

_Fett had fully turned in his chair now. “What’s a fun-house?” he asked stiffly._

_"Oh - well, it’s an amusement facility found in carnivals. Everything inside is all sideways and upside-down. Makes it tricky to find your way out.”_

_Fett only shook his head once and turned back to the console, leaving Greta to ponder his silence where she stood. Eventually, he heard her prodding one of the panels on the wall. "I'll, um, just get on with the interior controls," she said, mostly to herself._

_Through his rear helmet cam, Fett saw that she had found the control panel on the back wall of the cockpit. She was pulling at the latch, but the cover wouldn't budge. For a few minutes, she prodded and yanked, but still no luck. With her back turned to him, he rose silently from his chair and closed in from behind. He reached a hand out and popped it open. Greta inhaled sharply, surprised by his sudden appearance. She turned slowly, her face mere inches from his visor._

_Fett took the opportunity to examine her closer. Large, brown eyes framed with thick lashes. Grease marks stained her face, covering freckles and a small flush to her cheeks. Her lips were slightly parted as she stared up at him_. _Finally, he said, “My prisoners would find the Slave anything but fun.”_

_At this proximity, most people would squirm being so close to him. Instead, Greta looked at him helmet-on, with a hint of mischief to her voice. "If they ever managed to escape your holding cells, they'd never know which way was up."_

_Fett was still close, his helmet tilted down. It was a force of habit, allowing his presence to intimidate. "No one escapes,” he said, his voice low. He watched Greta swallow hard. There it was. The reaction he expected from everyone else, but one he didn't truly want from her. She shuffled her feet slightly. It was then that_ _he muttered, "That's what magnetic boots are for."_

_His response made her shoulders relax, and she let out a quiet chuckle, the light awake in her eyes again. "No wonder you're the best in the galaxy."_

_The bounty hunter only grunted in affirmation, but smiled behind the helmet. He liked that fire in her eyes. It wasn't often he spent time with someone who wasn't a quarry or someone who was trying to kill him. But the playfulness in her expression drew him in that he nearly forgot himself, forgot that he was still standing there, a hair's breadth away from this beautiful girl who spoke to him so casually. He moved past her again, digging out a long cord tucked inside the panel and held it out for her._

_"You were looking for this."_

_She nodded and took the cord from him, plugging it into her datapad. Her diagnostic program started up immediately. Fett noticed the long string of code that appeared on the screen and was all the more impressed by her skills as a mechanic. He couldn't help himself when he asked, "How do you know so much about ships?"_

_Greta kept her eyes down at the datapad and didn't look at him when she answered in a near-whisper, "My father."_

_She raised her face to his visor then, and he saw a look he knew too well - a look that reflected his own buried grief. He didn't have to ask what had happened to know. Before he knew what he was doing, he had placed a gloved hand under her elbow, giving it a small squeeze. Her face changed then, blooming into a full smile as he lingered a few seconds. It was the first time he felt drawn to anyone, and he struggled with this strange desire for connection. He let go, then moving deftly to the other side of the panel, pretending to work on a mess of tubes and pipes. Meanwhile, Greta had kept her gaze at him for a moment, before turning her attention back to the panel, poking a stylus at the switches and wires inside. Fett continued wrenching out bits of wiring, but he was fully aware of her presence, watching her from time to time from the side of his visor. They stayed like this for a long while: Fett working and Greta analyzing diagnostics on her datapad. It wouldn't be the last time they would work on the Slave I together in such comfortable and pleasant company._

Boba Fett remembered the strange, unknown feeling he sensed when she was near: the pull to know and be known. How he wished that he hadn’t been drawn to her warmth, her _everything_ that _wasn’t him_ : Cold, hard, cruel.

And yet, that was exactly who he wanted to be as a bounty hunter. The Boba Fett who wanted this woman’s tenderness but who also wanted to be ruthless in the eyes of the world could not exist together. This was precisely how Darth Vader had played him. What a fool he was. Though he was more successful a bounty hunter than ever, he now saw that no one comes out a winner in a game with Vader. He knew it the moment Greta last looked at him in abject horror and disgust. Now, he understood why the hunt had recently lost its luster: Each time he brought down his targets, it was her look he would see on their faces, reminding him not of his success as a bounty hunter, but only of his failure – as a man.

The thought bothered him – that he should regret losing a part of himself that made him weak. Had not his obedience to Vader made him a better hunter? He stared at the expanse of space before him, unsure of what to think.

As if the universe was listening, a memory from his past answered. It was a conversation he had had with an old Jedi who had been his quarry. Fett was young then, only a few years in his trade. It was this memory that taught him to never converse with the prisoners.

_The old man had entered the holding cell when Fett heard him speak, the words resonating in mind only: “You seek to destroy yourself, son.”_

_In a flash, Fett had his blaster pressed against the Jedi’s neck. “Enter my mind again, and I will kill you.”_

_The man opened his mouth: “I tell you for your own good.”_

_Fett loosened his grip on the man’s collar. Holstering his blaster, he replied, “I make my own destiny.”_

_The old man shook his head gravely. “That is where you are wrong._

_"Save me your Jedi philosophy. I’ve heard it all before.”_

_"_ _You have heard, but you don’t understand. The universe is a complicated place, much like a tangled web. And everyone and everything in it are inextricably intertwined. You think you are exempt from this – that you are outside this construct of reality? Not so. You must accept your intrinsic nature. This, you cannot change.”_

_“I can become better than I am.”_

_“If you mean ‘better’ in terms of becoming who you are not, you are sadly mistaken. If you wish to be better than you are, seek good for others, not for yourself. Seek to be a better man. Without this, you will be no better than a machine with no soul and no depth. Do you really want this?”_

_The question hung in the air before the young Fett spoke evasively: “The frailty of humankind is its reliance on emotions, which are directly opposed to the reliability of logic and reason. Feelings change. Facts do not.”_

_The Jedi stroked his beard. “You see emotions as a stain you need to blot out. You see them as being uniquely separate from your intrinsic self – the man you were meant to be.”_

_“Precisely.”_

_“Hm.” The Jedi muttered. “Then you are sadly mistaken. Choose your path carefully, son. But I fear you will only learn the hard way. You will have to suffer the consequences of your logic in action before you see how important feelings really are. Only then you will understand. Regret is a powerful emotion.”_

The words of the old Jedi echoed in Fett’s mind as he replayed the image of Greta’s face in the dream once more. Looking into the vacuous depths of space, he heard a quiet desire murmur in his heart _: I have to undo what I have done._

He could have easily ignored this voice, as he had many times before. Yet for the first time, logic coincided with his emotions: he would defy Vader and take Greta back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. Has anyone thought about how weird the Slave I is? I mean, you get on it when it's laying on its "back." When it takes off, it tips 90 degrees, so the cockpit has to turn too. That means the inside gets all turned about like an E.M. Escher drawing when it lands. If you look at comic "Twin Engines of Destruction," there are rungs of a ladder laid out on the floor leading to the cockpit, which means this is true. Anyhow, I thought I would make it a point of, er, discussion in this chapter. Maybe I need to think about more important things, like . . . what to make for lunch.
> 
> ii. Before The Mandalorian, I always wondered if Boba Fett ever regretted any of his jobs, hence the idea for this story. More than 10 years later, it's nice to see that play out on TV, even if the job Mando goes back on is a wrinkly green baby.


	8. lab

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: scenes of violence, trauma, torture

There was a faint hum in the darkness. It filled the air and resonated through the walls and floor. And though it was barely audible, it could not be ignored.

Greta was lying on the floor of her cell in complete darkness. Even in her semi-consciousness, she heard the hum - the deep pulsing of the Deathstar’s core. She had been transferred to this half-finished structure recently, although she was aware of neither time nor space. Now, its hum was the only thing she noticed over the throbbing in her head and the warm stickiness gluing her face to the floor.

Since being sent to the Imperial labs, Greta had been given a regular dose of inhibitors, adrenaline and powerful stimulants injected into her cerebellum, making her sensory perception and motor control keen and precise. Another slew of needles affected her conscious and emotional processes in attempt to control her will.

Whatever they had injected her with had begun coursing through her veins, and she could feel, along with the hum, the quickening of her heart and the spasming of her muscles throughout her body. She could feel herself slipping into unconsciousness and falling into a stream of memories from Jabba’s palace . . .

_She scrubbed her face with her hands. Her job queue was massive, totally backlogged. When a request from the Slave I appeared on her datapad, she felt a slight panic. There was no way she could get to Fett’s ship that day. Greta let out a deep breath that was soaked with exhaustion. She hoped to gods Fett would understand. He had never been impatient with her, but she had never been this late. As a slave mechanic in Jabba’s palace, Greta worked hard to keep the Hutt’s associates happy. There was no other choice, really, so she resolved to discuss it with him. She was almost at the loading ramp of his ship when she heard Fett speak with a razor’s edge to his voice._

_“Move. You’re no good to me dead,”_

_She peered around the ramp and saw Fett aiming his rifle at a large Devaronian male in shackles._

_“I ain’t gonna be rancor food!” yelled the Devaronian._

_“Not my problem,” Fett growled. The deep thrum of his voice sent a chill through Greta’s spine. Everything in his posture indicated danger: his helmet angled menacingly, body taut and ready. So this was what he was like on a job, she thought._

_“You can’t shoot me. You said so yourself. The Hutt wants me alive!”_

_Fett powered up his rifle. “Move.”_

_The Devaronian snarled, hulking his shoulders. Before the larger being even moved, the bounty hunter had come in fast, hitting the alien with a blinding series of well-placed blows. With one mean hook to the jaw, Fett sent the large Devaronian to the floor. Scrambling to his feet, the hulking alien locked eyes with Greta. Fett’s helmet turned, and she saw him looking at her, too. Greta held her breath, clutching the datapad in her hands._

_“Don’t move,” Fett growled. Greta wasn’t sure if he was speaking to her or his quarry. She couldn’t move, anyway. The Devaronian roared again, this time, ready to lunge at her._

_Suddenly, there was a loud BLAM and a flash of red light. When Greta opened her eyes, she found the Devaronian crumpled on the floor at her feet. She blinked and let out a huge breath. It took her some time to realize that Fett had descended from the ramp and was talking to her._

_“Greta.”_

_His presence frightened her at the moment. The way he moved with such ferocity and sheer efficiency was terrifying. She took a step back. At the time, she knew she shouldn’t have been surprised. He was Boba Fett. He was known to be ruthless. The Devaronian had disobeyed him, but a nagging voice tugged at her. What would he do if she ever crossed him? The thought sent dread pooling into her belly, and it spiked up to her throat when she remembered why she had come. The job queue._

_“Are you okay?” he asked. His voice was so different - softer, quiet - the voice he used when he spoke only to her._

_Greta opened her mouth slightly, then closed it again. “I, um – “ she trailed off, swallowing hard. Fett approached her slowly with his hands up, the way one approaches a wounded animal. Instinctively, she backed away, until she felt herself bump into a pile of crates behind her. Fett angled his helmet, questioning._

_"Easy,” he said._

_Stiffly, Greta lifted the datapad toward him. Her mouth felt dry when she spoke. “I’ve been over-run with jobs. I came here to ask for time,” she stammered. “That I can’t – I can’t . . .” she couldn’t think. All she could feel were her insides churning._

_Fett slowly reached out for her datapad and scrolled through the countless jobs on her queue. “I see,” was all he said._

_Greta’s mouth was so dry when she replied, “I’m sorry.”_

_He studied her for a moment. “Did you think I would be angry?”_

_Greta nodded slowly. Fett was quiet again. His stillness unnerved her. It was the first time in the years she had known him that she wished she could see his face._

_“A slave who cannot work is a slave not worth keeping,” she whispered, as though confessing to him a secret._

_Fett’s helmet tilted in a slight nod. She wondered if he fully understood the heaviness of this statement – the potential beatings, mistreatments and insults a slave had to endure, the constant possibility of death. Without another word, Fett punched a few commands into her datapad and handed it back to her. When Greta looked at the screen, she saw that the job queue empty._

_Greta looked up at the faceless bounty hunter. She could see her own surprised face distorted in the reflection of his visor. “How did you – ?”_

_Fett tilted his helmet, as though the answer was obvious. “Comes with being the best,” he said. He then took her by the elbow and led her toward the ramp of his ship. “When was the last time you slept?”_

_Greta shrugged. “I’m not sure.”_

_She felt his gaze keenly then, as he studied her. “You look exhausted,” he said at length._

_“You needed work done on the ship,” she whispered._

_Fett shook his head slowly, “Not urgent.” He squeezed her elbow as he often did. “There’s a cot in the guest room,” he pointed inside the ship. “Go. Rest.”_

_Greta was speechless. Only a moment ago, she had watched Fett ruthlessly beat down a massive Devaronian. Then, he cleared her job queue and was now ordering her to sleep. She stood at the mouth of the cargo bay for a while, watching Fett walk down the ramp on his way to collect the bounty on the Devaronian. The offer sounded like a luxury. She hesitated a moment before she turned and headed inside, finally allowing herself to give in to the adrenaline crash and fatigue threatening to overcome her._

The hum of the Deathstar seemed to ebb away as her conscious slipped farther into the darkness. It could have been minutes or hours, but with her now-enhanced hearing, she snapped to attention – and to the pain in her body – when she heard traces of distant footsteps heading her way. Slowly, she grew aware that she could see in the dark. First, she noticed the ceiling: she could see the striations and cracks. Sitting up, her head swam, but she could see the pool of blood she had been lying in, glistening from the shred of light coming from beneath the cell door. She frowned, then felt a strange numbness on the left side of her face. Reaching up, she felt a cold, metal object directly over her eye. She prodded her face, trying to remove the object. Doing so only caused her pain, like she was tearing out her own eye. In horror, she realized that this _was_ her eye.

In the months as she grew complacent, Greta’s mind had begun to shut down. But this – this violation – brought her back to her senses. As the footsteps grew louder, she smelled the one she hated so intensely. And she was not going to let him get away with hurting her anymore.

The cell door opened. She was already on him, knocking him back with a series of hard blows. With each hit she delivered, the stronger she felt. She felt the electrifying surge of hate each time she landed a blow. The voices in her head urged her on, driving her movements into instinct. No more did her muscles spasm; instead, they locked and released with clockwork precision for every movement. The man, though clad in armour, staggered back, but did not make an effort of fighting back.

Finally, Greta knocked the man to the ground, his armour clanging on the steel floor. She pinned him to the floor with her hands around his neck.

“Kill me,” said the man. “Do it.”

Greta looked at him in silence. Something deep within was urging her on. A dark, compulsive rage coursed through her veins. But something inside intervened. Her own voice was unequivocal: _Don’t do it._

“Go to hell,” she growled. “I’ll never be like you.” Then, a searing pain in her side. He had got between her ribs with a vibroblade, pushed in hard and twisted. Now free from her iron grip, her enemy lifted his helmeted head, just enough for her to see herself in his T-shaped visor. She hated what she saw – the bionic eye, her bloodthirsty expression, her sunken features. Her rage subsided as the pain quickly overtook her senses.

“If you don’t kill me,” he mocked, now standing over her crumpled form. “I will eventually kill you.”

Greta spat the blood from her mouth at his feet. “I will never forgive you. I will hate you for the rest of my life. But I cannot kill you.”

“Your hate means nothing,” he replied, “without the desire to kill.” He yanked her to her feet by the hair. “Your next session awaits.”

* * *

Greta’s anger today _was_ admirable. She had thrown herself into fighting him harder than he’d ever seen. He was quite satisfied with himself. But there was still a long way to go. There was still too much of the original Greta behind the rage.

In his quarters, after having guards return an unconscious Greta back to her cell, the man removed his helmet and smiled. _Boba Fett should be so lucky if he looked like this,_ he thought, running a hand across his shaven head, looking at himself in the mirror. Ascii, as the man was called, was one of the Empire’s most ruthless agents who tortured and manipulated lab subjects for military research. What made him so terrifyingly effective was that he studied his subjects’ pasts to find ways to completely unhinge their mental balance. When studying Greta’s file, he found her past and a fascinating note from Lord Vader about her relationship to Boba Fett. It was then he decided he would conduct his tests under the guise of Boba Fett, donning an exact replica of his armour.

Harnessing Greta’s anger had been easy; destroying her self-will was not. It was Vader’s orders that her anger be the only thing left of her, but for many months, she resisted, attempting to preserve her sense of right and wrong. Today, she was so close to losing all of it. Soon, he would make her fight to the death.


	9. the palace never sleeps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boba Fett returns to Tatooine with a familiar slab of carbonite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. Han Solo was frozen in carbonite for about a year before Leia came to rescue him. However, for this story, I’ve condensed the timeline to bring BF closer to the events of the Sarlaac.
> 
> ii. This chapter references events from the comic, Boba Fett 1/2: Salvage. If you haven't read it, you should!

Jabba was thrilled to see Solo’s frozen, agonized face when Boba Fett presented him the smuggler’s carbonite form. Slurping on live beetles the size of a human fist, Jabba erupted in a guttural laughter.

“At last, Han Solo! I told you I would have the last word, cowardly cheat!” said the worm in Huttese. He crunched down on the beetle in his mouth. Its guts dribbled down his enormous lips. “Bring him closer. I want to see every detail of his last moments.”

Boba Fett stepped forward, and the slab followed. After a few punches into a remote, Fett flipped the carbonite upright, so that Solo’s distorted face came face-to-face with the Hutt.

Jabba examined Solo’s face with his big, watery eyes. “Yes. Very nice. Very agonizing.

Jabba turned to Boba Fett who was standing silently with blaster rifle held across his arms. “His expression is satisfactorily mortifying. Tell me, Fett. Did Solo scream as he froze? I’d like to think he was whimpering like the coward he is.”

Boba Fett generally disliked discussing the suffering of his targets with his employers, even if it potentially increased the amount of credits he would receive. It wasn’t in his nature, nor did he think the difficult bounties he fulfilled were in need of embellishment. Obstinately, he replied, “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Jabba scowled at this dry response. “At least let me imagine.”

“You know better than to ask _me_ ,” Fett replied, tersely.

“True. Your accomplishments speak for themselves, correct?”

Fett nodded.

Jabba scoffed. “No matter. The look on Solo’s face tells me the horror and pain he experienced. I will take great pleasure at seeing his suffering forever preserved in carbonite.” He laughed again, spitting out the beetle shell. He gestured with his tail while stuffing his face with fresh beetle. “Hang the cur on the wall. He’ll be a fine warning to anyone thinking of crossing Jabba the Hutt!”

The Gamorrean guards promptly took the carbonite and began hoisting the slab in place.

Turning to Fett, Jabba eyed the bounty hunter standing silently before him and hummed to himself. “It’s been a long time, Fett. I have not seen you here in many moons. Ever since . . .”

Fett’s body visibly tightened like a snake ready to strike. Remembering his part of their deal, Jabba ordered his servants out of the chamber. Perhaps it was not best to bring up a confidential agreement with a lethal bounty hunter before an audience.

The Hutt continued. “. . . ever since you paid me out to take my slave-mechanic. The girl.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“I should not have let you take her. I could have made more money long-term with the credits you paid me for her protection.”

“You would have to take that up with Vader.”

“Oh, I know. But I thought you would pay her out – for yourself.”

“I have no interest in taking a slave.”

The Hutt eyed him again, recalling the reason Fett had told him years ago. He had told him that Greta was a good mechanic, the only one he would trust with his ship. Of course this was partially a lie, but the Hutt wasn’t going to challenge one of the most dangerous men in the galaxy.

Jabba decided it was unwise to continue on the subject of the female mechanic and got down to his point. “What of the little one? Your next payment for her safety is due. Will you continue to protect her now that the mechanic is gone?” The Hutt licked his lips – the tell-tale sign he was lusting after something. If he couldn’t keep Greta, he could at least secure the long-term protection payout for this worthless slave. It didn’t matter to him why Fett would want to protect the little twerp; he imagined the bounty hunter had lewd habits he kept private. To the Hutt, money was money, no matter how perverse the request. It only irked him that he had not had Fett’s idea first; this young one would make him a tantalizing consort.

Of course, Fett had only paid protection for Lethia as a service to Greta, originally intending to ensure their safety while he was away fulfilling his bounties. And now, since he had every intention of finding Greta, he saw that Lethia’s safety was paramount if he ever hoped to obtain Greta’s forgiveness.

“Another year, for now,” Fett answered. He pulled up a visual of his account through his helmet and transferred the amount into Jabba’s. “Done. You know my conditions.”

“Not a hair,” sang the Hutt. He slurped liquor from a nearby cistern. Feeling a little brazen from the drink, he added, “She’s a fierce little thing. She’d be better as a dancer – of the more provocative type.”

The Hutt’s lust after a 15-year-old girl disgusted Fett. “Not. A. Hair,” he hissed.

Getting his message, the Hutt backed off. “Only a joke, master Fett.” 

Tired of the slug’s banter, Fett desired only to change the subject and close his deal with the Hutt. “The protection payment is done. We discuss _my_ payment. Now.”

Jabba burped after washing down beetle bits with more liquor. Fett was more than thankful he had just changed the air filters in his helmet; his helmet’s noxious fumes detector was off the charts.

“Yes, yes, always business. Never one for chit-chat,” said the Hutt with a false sigh. “I offered one hundred thousand credits –”

Before the Hutt could finish, Boba Fett was on him, blaster rifle butted right against the slug’s head. As much as the Hutt’s parasite-ridden body disgusted him, Fett had no qualms about blowing off his head.

“You said a quarter million,” Fett growled through the helmet, pushing the rifle harder against the slug’s jelly-like head.

Pressing a button, the Hutt hailed Bib Fortuna, who skulked back into the chamber, taken aback by the scene before him: Boba Fett standing on the Hutt’s platform, with one foot on his slimy chest and a rifle held to his head.

“Transfer a quarter million credits,” Jabba said woodenly. Bib looked back and forth in confusion as the Hutt grew agitated. “Do it - _now_!”

The Twi’lek hastily punched buttons on his datapad, then made a grimace at Fett, baring his sharp, pointed teeth.

“Credits transferred,” he hissed.

Boba Fett checked his account through his visor monitor, which confirmed the transfer. He released the Hutt, wiping his boot off the edge of the platform. “Very stupid,” he said.

The Hutt’s chest was heaving as he attempted to remain nonchalant about what just happened. “My mistake,” he coughed uneasily.

Fett did not reply and turned to leave. But before he disappeared down the hall, Fett’s visor angled back toward the slug. In a low, furious voice, he said, “Never try that again.”

* * *

While Fett stalked down one of the palace’s many tunnels, he contemplated his meeting with Jabba. He had forgotten how easy it was to deal with the Hutt. Point a blaster at his head, and the worm would squirm, acquiesce. It was all the more apparent to him that working for Vader had forced him to sacrifice so much more. Vader had him pulled along like a puppet. The thought firmed his resolve to locate Greta, even if it meant losing everything.

He had made it as far as the shipyard now. Nightfall had come, and the shipyard was empty save for a small figure emerging from an unknown ship. Reactively, he hovered a hand over his blaster. He relaxed when he saw it was only the bounty hunter Boushh. To Fett’s surprise, Solo’s co-pilot Chewbacca appeared beside the small bounty hunter. The Wookie roared at the sight of him, but Boushh scurried them off in the direction of the audience chamber. Fett’s instincts fired a warning of suspicion, but he ignored it. He wished to be alone.

He continued through the silent shipyard, now devoid of its usual bustle. It was the first time he had been back since _that day_. When he reached the _Slave I_ , his former bravado while dealing with the Hutt had gone. In its place was a hollow feeling that only wrenched more when he noticed the thousands of patches welded on the Slave I’s hull. They were mementos of _her_ , evidence of all the years of diligence and care she had given looking after his ship – looking after him. He closed his eyes, nearly unable to breathe. That is, until he imagined her voice, her eyes, her hands. His body relaxed, and he breathed in the memory.

_“Hey,” she had said. “Your ship looks like hell.”_

_Fett was in the cargo hold when he saw her standing at end of the ramp, looking bewildered at the exterior of the ship. When her gaze came to rest on him, her mouth fell open. “YOU look like hell.”_

_Fett grunted. He was sitting against the wall seemingly absorbed in taking his weapons apart and cleaning them. Without waiting for an invitation, Greta walked up the ramp and stood opposite from him. Beneath the helmet, he was gritting his teeth. He was in no mood to talk that day; he had just returned from a terrifying ordeal that he did not want to relive. Keeping silent was the only way to keep the flood of adrenaline from pushing him over the edge. He sat in silence like this for a while until Greta spoke._

_“Are you okay?” she said, keeping her voice low._

_He kept his hands busy and didn’t look up, “Why wouldn’t I be?” he replied tersely._

_“The ship’s hull is dotted with countless small holes, like you got sprayed with a million tiny bullets. You’ve got a few new dents in your armor the exact size and shape as those holes. I can guess you nearly escaped with your life.”_

_Boba Fett continued to clean his weapons, moving with mechanical purpose. The process was predictable, routine, known. It was all he could do to keep his mind from_ those things _._

_“I don’t want to talk about it,” he rasped._

_Greta pursed her lips and looked at him with concern, “Okay,” she said simply. “I’ll go survey the damage outside.” Fett watched her turn down the ramp, halting the project in his hands. He felt like his nerves, his body, everything was on overload. In the recesses of his mind, he wondered if, just this once, he should confide in her – to allow her to know what he was feeling. Shaking his head, he continued to absorb himself in his work._

_Not long after, Greta returned. She stood a good distance away with her hands on her hips._

_“It’ll be a helluva job to fill those holes,” she said. “Might need to enlist a few droids.”_

_Fett remained in the same position, methodically cleaning the blasters without answering. It wasn’t that he resented her presence; he didn’t know what to do about it. He felt the familiar pull to be honest with her, but it was an alien desire – one that paralyzed him._

_As though she could sense his thoughts, Greta stepped closer and took a seat next to him. She was close enough for him to feel the warmth of her through his jumpsuit. It was impossible for him to ignore her close proximity. Slowly and steadily, she tucked a hand under his elbow. It was a touch they shared; now a secret gesture that spoke of their closeness._

_“What caused this damage?” she whispered._

_He hesitated before turning to face her. Beneath the armor, Fett could feel his heart in his throat. He never spoke of his feelings – not even to Greta – never let anyone know he was human. Anger and ferocity, yes, but never this: Never fear._

_It was the touch that undid him. He was speaking before he could restrain himself._

_“Ubuugan Fleshborers.”_

_Greta sucked in a breath and shuddered, “Oh. How awful.”_

_He continued. “I was on my way to hand over two prisoners. Came across an abandoned freighter. . . No one answered my calls; assumed the crew was dead. So I boarded. Thought it’d be a valuable salvage. I was right: Everyone was dead. . .” he trailed off. He remembered the scene vividly. The entire crew sprawled on the floor, their skin pocked with holes - a strange vibration coming from the corpses, pulsing, moving . . ._

_“There were . . . so many of them –”_ _Fett took a deep breath. “They came after me. Infested the Slave. Nearly blew up the ship torching them out.”_

_He paused for a long while, the memory of that harrowing ordeal resonated disturbingly deep. From the side of his visor, he watched Greta sitting next to him and listening, her eyes communicating compassion and understanding. He felt the walls around his heart begin to soften, gladdening from her presence, to feel her warmth beside him. Steady. Present._

_She spoke, “You escaped.”_

_Fett nodded slowly, keeping his gaze at his hands. He remembered the blasted parasites swarming him, how he could feel them trying to get through his gloves._

_He was still deep in thought when he felt her hand slide into his. It surprised him. Even through the gloves, he felt the gentle touch and the warmth of her hand. He might not have accepted this gesture another time, but he found himself welcoming it now. Her presence quelled the flight or fight alarm in him that had been raging in his system long after the threat was gone. It surprised him the effect she had on him. She squeezed his hand. It was all she needed to say._

Something deep within ached. He had destroyed what they had, and now he had no one who knew him as well as she did. Wasn’t that what he wanted? The invulnerability of being unknowable? 

A slight rustle behind him interrupted his thoughts. He turned quickly, and was taken off guard by a figure in white charging him.

Lethia.

His reflexes were beyond fast, but he underestimated her. Always knowing her to be Greta’s tag-along friend, he never suspected her physical capabilities. Before he knew it, the girl had found the chink in his armor, nailing him between the ribs with a small blade. It was nothing too serious, but blood ran slowly from the wound. Quickly, she pulled it out, ready to aim for his neck.

Faster than anything she had seen, he caught Lethia’s hand and gripped it so tight, she let go of the knife.

She was so small for her age that Fett could hold her off the ground with one hand. “Let go,” she snarled, as she thrashed in his grip. “Let me go, you asshole!”

Gently, he set her down, but kept her hands firmly in his grip. “Settle down,” he said firmly, but quietly.

“So you’re back to find someone else to deceive and betray, right? Maybe this time a Twi’lek dancer, or even one of the other female slaves . . .”

Fett cut her off. “That's not how I operate.”

“That’s what you did to Greta.”

“There are things in this galaxy you do not understand.”

“Fierfek,” she spat. “I’ve lived enough of a shitty life to know what goes on this galaxy. You betrayed Greta. That’s the long and short of it. Don’t give me some lame excuse that you did what you did because the world is a ‘complicated place.’”

Fett, not being a man of many words, found her flurry of accusations difficult to contend with. He was a man of action, and he resisted wanting to thrust her aside and walking away. Instead, he managed to say, rather uncomfortably, “I know what I have done.” His visor moved menacingly close to her as she watched her own wide-eyed expression in the reflection. “Stay out of it.”

Lethia pursed her lips. “I won’t. She was my friend.” Her resolve broke, and small tears rolled down her pale face. “She was yours, too.”

Boba Fett looked at her for a moment, then nodded slightly. “Yes. She was.”

Lethia was still at this moment, looking at the bounty hunter she had trusted her friend with. It was hard to tell if he was being sincere, but then – Boba Fett never said anything he didn’t mean.

“Then why did you betray her? She’s been sent to Imperial labs – for a fate worse than death. How could you?”

Turning his back to her, Fett said nothing. What he felt was too complex for him to explain. Guilt, remorse, shame were surfacing faster than he could handle. At this moment, for once in his life, he found himself unable to act. He could not answer.

“You coward,” she whispered, more tears wetting her cheeks. Under normal circumstances, Boba Fett would never had let anyone get away with accusing him of weakness, but here, he grudgingly felt the burning truth of the girl’s words. From behind the mask, his lips pursed in a grim line in his attempt to restrain his emotions. He was about to answer when a commotion erupted from the audience chamber, echoing through the palace tunnels. Princess Leia had been discovered.

Boba Fett and Lethia exchanged glances. The bounty hunter who had delivered Chewbacca – they understood what had happened. Seeing that his recently delivered merchandise would be again the center of the palace’s attention, he turned to ensure the safety of his bounty. But before he left, Lethia audaciously grabbed his arm. Holding him firmly and looking directly into his shielded gaze, Lethia showed no fear, only the hard truth of her message:

“She loved you, Boba Fett. And you failed her.”


	10. distant memories, harsh realities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning! Reference to rape/ non-consensual, torture. (Nothing graphic, though)

It had been three months in the Imperial labs when she was first introduced to _him_. That day, she had undergone a freezing test, where technicians submerged her in ice-cold water for several hours. She would have died if it weren’t for the chemicals they had pumped into her to keep her blood from freezing and protecting her vitals from the frigid temperature. Deeming the experiment a success, the techs pulled her out, after which she lay on an examining table naked and semi-conscious. It was hard to make out what the techs were saying, but she did catch snippets of their conversation:

“Subject is alive. Core temperature: normal. Outer temperature is below freezing but the body is in perfect condition. She is one of the few to survive this.”

A nasal voice added, “Her body has accepted the chlorozan. Not only can she withstand extreme cold, her muscles are responding to it. She has passed almost every physical test we have given her.”

There was a pause. The other one spoke. “But not the mind-control.”

“No. There are far too many signs of her will fighting it off. Lord Vader is aware of her condition. He has sent for our most efficient agent to change her cerebral pathways – by force.

At that moment, a hushed murmur swept the room. The doors of the lab opened, then silence. The techs had all disappeared.

Even before she knew all this had happened, she heard heavy footsteps coming toward her, the same that would announce his terrible presence in the months to come. Greta, unable to gather her wits about her, shivered on the table in a rigid mass. The next thing she knew, she was being pulled up by her hair (she hardly even felt it as her hair ripped out in clumps) – and looking blurredly at a familiar T-shaped visor. Even in her paralyzed state, she let out a discernible gasp as she recognized him.

But before she could muster the energy to say anything, he savagely turned her around and pushed her face-down on the table. The cold steel greeted her face with blinding force. She hardly knew what was happening until he had her bent over the table as he pressed up against her from behind. Panicking, she tried to kick him away, but she had no control. She was helpless, and completely at his mercy as she heard him undoing his codpiece, and felt his gloved hands slide between her thighs.

“Your training begins.”

This was the first time, among many, that she would learn to truly hate this Boba Fett.

* * *

Greta tried not to let her mind wander to these thoughts, but something within her was determined not to believe that whoever was behind this mask was not really Boba Fett, despite his claims. It seemed too convenient that in their failed attempts to control her mind, Boba Fett should show up, only to brutally violate her. And although she could not be sure of who he really was after his betrayal, her instincts told her that the Imperials were using his image to drive her over the edge.

It almost worked. The first few months after he reintroduced himself into her life, she almost let him kill her. She wanted to die so badly. But the man disguised as Boba Fett was so unlike the man she knew for seven years. The last and only time Boba Fett was cruel to her, he seemed conflicted; more angry with himself than with her, and in retrospect, never nearly this brutal. This Boba Fett revelled in violence; it gave him such perverted pleasure to draw her blood.

Secretly, all of the Imperials’ experiments had backfired. Though they awaited Greta’s killing instinct to emerge, they were unaware that she was planning an escape. If she had no control over the body-enhancing procedures and training they subjected her to, she had to use these as her only weapons, and fight hard to keep her mind intact. For now, she had to keep acting like she believed this imposter’s ruse until the right time. She hadn’t decided if she would kill him. She didn’t like this idea, even if he deserved it a thousand times over; but she didn’t want to become like _them_ – even if it meant denying herself of vengeance.

At present, she was hooked up to the electroshock unit, with “Boba Fett” telling her more of his lies. But now that the chlorozan compound had successfully fused itself into her cell structure, the electricity didn’t seem to hurt her as much anymore; it actually seemed to stimulate her muscles.

Of course, the shock therapy still affected her mind and she tried her best to mimic the same pain response she once exhibited; now she struggled to stay awake during the numbing electric hum coursing between her ears. It was weird how the electroshock now induced her into a dreamlike state, possibly the chlorozan protecting her brain from overloading. Today, her dreams brought her back to a memory, of the time Fett had helped her recover from cave blindness . . .

_Greta was lying on a bed with gauze wrapped around her eyes, waiting for them to heal after receiving the last of the solar treatments on Boba Fett’s ship. She had never spent time in his sickbay, nor so long on his ship. Despite his reputation, Greta felt relief being here, away from the commotion of the palace, its sickness and sounds of death._

_At one point, she drifted off to sleep, lulled by the comforting hum of the ship’s interior systems, a sound she knew well from working on it for so many years. The warmth of a hand on her face woke her. Hazy from sleep, she thought it was a dream, but came to realize that someone was there. The hands were ungloved._

_Her throat was dry when she said his name. The hands paused. Then the familiar, filtered voice answered, “Yes.”_

_Boba Fett was now lifting the gauze from her eyes. Greta still couldn’t see, but make out an indistinct form with a very distinct helmet. And though she couldn’t see, she could feel. Those hands – his skin was on hers!_

_Greta tried to keep her breathing even, despite feeling her heart pounding in her chest. HIS bare hands were touching around her eyes and gently prying them open to check her progress._

_“I want to thank you,” she began, as he continued to examine, “for helping me.”_

_“You don’t need to thank me,” he replied._

_“Well . . . I want to,” she said, revealing a sweet smile. “So, thank you – for what it’s worth.”_

_There was a pause as he thought over this. In his mind, he reasoned that he was ensuring the maintenance of his ship, and therefore, the success of his career. He didn’t want to admit – even to himself – that he didn’t’ want her thrown to the rancor because he was emotionally involved. But her thanks had secretly made him proud, not for his own ability to help her, but because he had made her smile. It occurred to him then how much he liked that smile, especially when it was directed at him._

_“You’re . . . welcome,” he said slowly, quietly. His hand, which had rested on her face during these thoughts, absent-mindedly reached across her check, cupping her face more fully into his palm. The move surprised Greta as she felt the warmth of his hand radiating over her face and his fingers lightly resting behind her ear._

_For years now, the two of them had been each other’s orbits. They never quite collided, but she felt the pull of his center even stronger now. Had this been an encounter when they were still strangers, she wouldn’t have dared to reach up and touch his hand. Likewise, Fett would not have showed an ounce of himself uncovered to anyone, but this, too had changed over time._

_Greta slowly explored the back of his hand, hardly believing she was touching his skin – the first evidence of his humanity she had ever experienced. As her thumb traced over his skin, his hand flinched slightly but stayed. Fett was somewhat unprepared for his response to her touch. Little did she know, the softness of her hand stroking his own had awakened a deep yearning in his body. Aware of this, he began to withdraw his hand from beneath hers. Surprisingly, Greta held on._

_"Stay with me,” she said sucking in a breath, surprised at her own boldness._

_There was a pause. Greta was afraid she had pushed too far. Were those goosebumps she felt on the back of his hand? She had challenged a boundary that had been safely maintained between them. Life had gone on the same over the last seven years, consisting of quiet discussions, brief touches and thoughtful gestures peppered between work on the Slave I. Now, she had vocalized an emotional desire of wanting – him._

_In truth, Fett felt conflicted about his own desires. On one hand, he wanted to keep things simple: no strings attached, no liabilities. On the other hand, no matter how much he denied it, he wanted her too._

_“You need rest,” he answered softly. Boba Fett let his thumb pass over her cheek before slipping it away. She heard the rustling sound of cloth. He was putting his gloves back on. Then, he left the room._

* * *

The ending of that memory bade Greta wake from the electroshock. The lingering feelings were only confused by the long months of abuse she suffered under a man claiming to be him. Her memories of the real Boba Fett before his betrayal vastly contrasted with the man who had betrayed her, _and_ this man who enjoyed hurting her. She was indeed very confused, unsure of what to do with the feelings attached to the past.

Awaking, her eyes began to focus on her tormentor. The one who called himself Boba Fett was still talking. He talked more than the real Boba Fett ever did. And, gods, did she want him to shut up.

The electricity shut off, and this Boba Fett stalked over to her, pulling her head back by her now short-cropped hair. “Falling asleep, are we? You want more juice? I’ll give it to you.”

He began unbuttoning his pants. Greta looked wearily at him, stalling with her well-practiced blank stare. What she was really thinking, was how she was going to make him regret ever laying his hands on her. Parts of her conscience told her not to do it; that she would only fulfill what they wanted of her. Another part cried out for vengeance, for the evil that had been done to her. And things were different today. She could feel the chlorozan reacting with the electricity. Her senses were sharper somehow; her muscles desperate to react. Everything in her body told her she could not stand this anymore. She made a decision.

“C’mere, big boy,” she slurred.

Ascii cocked his head. “So you _want_ this now?” He laughed within the helmet, positioning in front of her. “I’ll give it to you.”

And without even seeing her move, Greta broke the confines of the chair and kneed her assailant with wicked force in the crotch. He might have puked his balls out, except he didn’t. He was on the floor, grabbing between his legs and swearing profusely. Standing over him with eyes clear and every muscle fibre twitching, she pinned him down with her foot to his chest and grabbed his vibroblade. “Yeah, I want it. I want to see you eat it.”

Carving up a sausage and feeding it to its owner was never more fun than this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I first wrote this (years before The Mandalorian came out), I imagined that Fett was a "helmet always on" kinda guy. Yeah, I know from the Clone Wars (blah), he's a little kid that goes around showing his face everywhere. So, before any of that came out, I always had it in my head that Boba Fett was a Mandalorian who never took off his helmet because it made him unknowable, intimidating and, well, badass. Some of my thinking was inspired by the comic "Twin Engines of Destruction," where a post-Sarlacc Boba Fett tries to track down a Boba Fett imposter with Dengar. At one point, Dengar jabs him about his scars. "No wonder you never show your face." The next panel zooms in to Fett replying menacingly, "This IS my face." Sure, they're talking about scars, but I had always imagined that this was a principle he believed in all the time - kinda like our Mando Din Djarin but not as strictly.
> 
> Fett miiiight take it off if he trusted someone enough.


	11. sarlaac dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Just the slightest hint of ze sexiness in the beginning, but nothing graphic. 
> 
> This chapter was inspired by a SW short story that I read a loooong time ago. Can you guess which one? (Answer is in the end notes). The premise of this chapter – mainly the setup of the Sarlacc situation and other elements – are that author’s ideas. I also created an AU Boba Fett backstory here that does not follow the prequels or Clone Wars, etc. 
> 
> Way back when Attack of the Clones came out, I was so, so disappointed that they made Fett a clone. A clone!!! I know, some of you are young (ahem) and love all this clone business (props to you if this is your jam). It's just that my entire childhood love for Boba Fett crumbled into a sad heap that day. So for this story, I wanted to keep Fett a Mandalorian with Mando parents and all that, just as I had imagined in the days before the Internet. So there. I warned you. Please no flames!

Pitch black dark. Boba Fett breathed shallowly, just barely conscious. Memories of a skirmish fluttered in and out of his mind. He saw the Hutt’s sail barge in flames. Skywalker, Han Solo, a fall . . .

In the darkness, he saw something flickering in the distance. A glimmer of silver-blue flittered in the periphery until it shifted and changed into a familiar form. It reappeared closer in full view, smiling sweetly.

 _I’m so glad you’re here, Boba,_ the figure said. Her voice chimed like a thousand silvery bells. Boba Fett kept his gaze fixed on the woman, unsure of what he was seeing.

Fett hardly knew he was speaking when he heard himself whisper, “Greta?”

The figure continued to float closer, her eyes wide and smile growing wider. _Yes, Boba_. She bared her teeth.

“Have we died, Greta?” he asked.

The ghostly image floated until they were face-to-face. She peered at him with large, sad eyes. _Soon._ she said. _When this horrid life is finished, we can start over._ Tendrils of long hair framed her silvery skin and cascaded down her shoulders, covering her breasts. It was then he noticed she was naked.

Before he knew it, she was pressed up against him, but he felt no weight, no pressure. Just cool, moist air, like a mist. But he felt her fingers touch his face, run over his scars. Gods, she was beautiful.

His heart ached; his body responded with desire. Almost as though she could read his mind, she reached down and stroked his inner thigh, meandering her hands further toward his groin.

Her touch sent an electric charge surging through his body.

 _You’ve loved me for such a long time, haven’t you?_ she purred. The sound of her voice was different somehow – silky, distorted, like many voices in one.

“Yes,” he answered.

_You acted like you didn’t._

“I have tried to deny all human emotion.”

_You won’t deny them now, will you?_

Putting both hands on his face, she leaned in to kiss him. Every part of his body was throbbing now, desiring her desperately. He had never felt such overpowering emotions before, never felt so completely vulnerable as he did now. As he took her into his mouth, he tasted her cool, moist lips – and nearly lost every ounce of control he had built over the last thirty years.

But even as much as he yearned for Greta, he knew, deep within, that there was something wrong with all of this – something _very_ wrong – because it was all too perfect. Trying to break from the kiss, the figure only kissed harder, more aggressively, and pressed herself more firmly to his body.

Finally, he broke from her, growling, “This is not real. This is all a lie.”

The figure stared for a moment, smile growing wider from ear to ear. Her mouth opened, then erupted in a deafening scream. Blinded by the sound, Fett shut his eyes, only to see images from the past – both good and bad – race before him. When he opened them, he no longer saw Greta’s beautiful figure before him, but a rotting corpse, half eaten away by acid and dangling upright by long, slimy tentacles – hanging like a gruesome puppet. The tentacled corpse recoiled and disappeared into the darkness.

Silence.

Deep in the lightless depths of the Sarlacc, Boba Fett hung, his arms and legs swallowed up in the digestive wall of the great beast and secured by huge, wet tentacles. As he came to understand where he really was, he realized that he still had his helmet on. Quickly, he attempted to assess the situation using his carefully honed skills. His helmet had a long crack in the visor, which displayed distorted stats and several systems offline, including his jetpack.

 _Damn_.

A quick scan indicated that his armor was slowly being dissolved by the acids in the tentacles holding him. Unsurprisingly, the scan also revealed that the acids had already eaten through the unarmored areas of his flight suit – but he couldn’t feel a thing, nor see it happening. He guessed that the Sarlacc was injecting an anesthetic that kept its victims calm while being digested alive for thousands of years. If this was the case, he had to act fast before the anesthetic drugged him into compliance.

Suddenly, a strange noise like a cloud of winged insects emerged from the darkness. As it grew louder, he detected whispers – multiple voices, speaking fast and hushed. Then, he began to make out words. Most he did not understand, but some spoke Basic. Others spoke what sounded like ancient, long-forgotten languages. Though he could see nothing, the voices rose from all around.

 _We thought it would make you happy,_ a chorus of silvery voices sounded. _The girl._

“Who are you?” he demanded. “ _What_ are you?”

We _are the Sarlacc_ , the voices replied. _The collective consciousness of all those we have and are consuming. You are becoming part of us as we speak._

“You can’t have me,” Fett spat.

The walls around him began to convulse. The voices around him erupted in an eerie laugh. _You are in no position to say so_ , it replied, tightening the tentacles around his body. _But aren’t we lucky to have you “drop in” on us . . . Boba Fett._

“How do you know me?”

_The many sentients we have consumed bear memories of you. Horrible memories. Accompanying them is fear and dread. As such, we want to keep you._

_You fascinate us_ , the Sarlacc continued. The walls around him pulsed a little in excitement. The voices giggled. _Tell us: Does a man like you ever experience . . . fear?_

“What does it matter to you.”

 _Oh_ , it said off-handedly, _It will be so fun to experience what you experience. The great, mysterious bounty hunter. So many of us want to know._ The tentacles twitched with delight. _To be so smug . . . so confident . . . so strong_.

Boba Fett was angry now, disgusted by the prospect of having a million consciousnesses invade his mind – the violation of everything he stood for.

Again, he repeated, slower than the first: “You. Can’t. Have. Me.”

The Sarlacc seemed to shrug. _Oh, but we already do. You don’t need to worry, Master Fett. You only benefit from this arrangement, you know. We can give you everything you want. Make all of this very comfortable and pleasing to you._

“I don’t want your filthy tentacles on me,” he spat.

 _Too late_ , the Sarlacc replied ruefully. _We’ve already given you a taste. We know you want more._

Boba hung in the darkness in silence, thinking of the vision of Greta. “How did you know about her? You’re a telepath?”

The Sarlacc chuckled. _Some of us were. Telepaths, mind-readers, Jedi, Sith, whatever you call them. Though after years of being the Sarlacc, our abilities have become somewhat diminished. Our apologies, Master Fett._

“Get out of my head,” he growled.

_Ah – but there’s still so much to see. And we’ve already seen Greta. She certainly is beautiful; delightfully charming. No wonder your feelings for her are so deep, so warm. We want to have them; to bathe in them. Soak them up. You will not deny us this pleasure, Boba Fett?_

“Do you always do this?”

_Do what, dear Fett?_

“Play with your food.”

The Sarlacc chuckled. The walls shook again. _We don’t eat like you do. It’s more akin to_ – _what do you call it?_ . . . _foreplay_.

Fett cursed under his breath, running through the possibilities of escape – and the most vicious ways to destroy this bloody creature. There was a silence as the Sarlacc awaited his response. Finally, it spoke, but with a different voice. 

It sounded like a woman – a very old woman – and her voice was quiet and raspy. _I remain the strongest telepath_ , she said. _An old force-user thrown into the Sarlacc hundreds of years ago. I cannot remember my name, but I can tell you that I have been here a very long time. And I remember your kind. The Mandalorians._

“What of my people?” Fett growled, almost defensively. The name of his kind stung; most of them were dead – made extinct by an ancient war – and now only he and a handful of others remained as the last descendants.

_They were warriors, like you. Fierce. Relentless. Loyal to your cause. You are an interesting and rare specimen, bounty hunter. Human, Mandalorian, solely devoted to your craft. You feel, but control your emotions with unparalleled skill, quite unseen among non-Force sensitives._

“Tell me something I _don’t_ know, woman,” Fett growled.

_You’ve had a painful past. I sense much anger, loss, rage. . . all simmering beneath a protective veneer of cold brutality. You decided you’d never be hurt again, if you became the aggressor – the victor – in all circumstances._

_But the Mandalorians – your people – they were lethal warriors. They never denied their emotions. No – the ones I knew, they trusted their emotions as much as they trusted their instincts. To them, their feelings were an integral part of themselves and skill, though they kept them well-guarded and private._

“ _Aay’han_ ,” he whispered in Mand’oa.

 _Yes,_ the old woman’s voice smiled in the darkness. _The bittersweet moment of mourning and joy. Remembrance. Celebration. The Mandalorians could not fight so valiantly if they did not feel such passion or zeal. Did you know that not only did the Mandalorian people fight fiercely, they also loved fiercely? They were monogamous; loyal to their mates for life. They would_ die _for each other._

Boba Fett shifted in his armour. “I remember . . . a little.” It was not easy for him to hear of his people or to think of his family. Having been orphaned at a young age, he only remembered moments: The relentless training under his father’s keen watch, the fierceness and warmth of his mother’s embrace. It had been years since he thought about his parents, but the Sarlacc, with its tranquilizing fluids, tapped into his nervous system forcing open the floodgates of memory. Yes - he remembered them. He remembered their loyalty to each other; their dedication. They were not affectionate people, but their bond was unspoken.

Unknown to Boba Fett, the Sarlacc had previously attached itself to Fett’s spinal cord with a neurostimulating tentacle. It activated now, squeezing whatever emotion it could from the hunter and pulling them out, raw and unfiltered. A great pang seized Boba Fett as memories he had long forgotten raced before his eyes. He had spent a lifetime trying to forget everything; forget that he lost everything the day his parents were murdered in front of him.

The old woman spoke again. _Did you not want what your parents had? The kind of subtle love they had for each other?_

“You will not speak of them,” he commanded quickly, afraid of betraying the rising emotions in his chest. But before he knew it, the grief he had suppressed his entire life had seized him, body and soul. The force of his emotions literally knocked the breath out of him.

Fett hung in the darkness in a state of shock and panic, unable to breathe – and shaking. He saw his parents being murdered once again, lying in a pool of their own blood

_Their deaths left you alone, vulnerable, drowning with grief. You swore off your humanity then, to wash yourself clean of your weakness . . . your guilt in their deaths._

Fett struggled to answer as intense emotions wracked his body. “I – I couldn’t save them.”

_No. You were not strong enough. Too emotional._

The guilt washed over Fett so viscerally, his body spasmed under the intensity. Yes, he remembered being so young, so vulnerable. He hated himself for his weakness and vowed that he would never lose again. Grief consumed him, and borne out of this was an unquenchable thirst for power. And this meant denying himself of all feeling, attachments and trust.

Then, the tentacles loosened and all became quiet and still. The intensity of emotion Fett experienced began to fade, leaving him exhausted and spent.

The old woman spoke again. _You denied yourself of feeling for so long, Fett. I see you for what you are. The boy you were, fighting and scrounging for survival, steeling yourself against the harsh world before you. That is, until you met_ her. _Until you saw her working tirelessly in the Hutt’s shipyard. You recognized yourself in her devotion to her craft; in her attempt to distract herself from the painful memories threatening to overcome her. Like you, she had watched her father killed and was forced to survive with the lot given to her. True, she is not as strong as you, not nearly as capable. But what you saw in her was not simply her pain, but her ability to give generously to those she loved. Her fullness reflected back to you your own forsaken emptiness._

 _I want to help waken you from your emotional slumber, Fett. Simply think of the past, and let me do the rest._ The tentacle attached to the base of his skull gripped his spinal column once more. Again, memories from the past – the palace – began to resurface before his eyes.

_Fett was watching Greta outside, on an abandoned observation deck atop Jabba’s palace overlooking the Dune Sea. He immediately recognized the memory: It had taken place a few months after Greta’s first mention of her father. He remembered this keenly, as it was the first time he had shared anything personal about himself with her._

_That night, he could not find her in the shipyard. He found her here, watching the setting of the twin suns under the twilight sky. She was watching something from a holocube in her palm._

_A small, glowing figure projected from it, speaking._ _“There is unrest in the galaxy, Greta. I make this recording for you in case we get separated. The voice was hushed, with notes of desperation. The sound of blasterfire could be heard in the background. “If I don’t make it, please don’t be angry with me, or yourself. You’ll need to move on; find others you can trust.”_

_There was fear in the man’s eyes, made even more intense by his love for his daughter. The blasterfire got louder. “No matter what happens, know that I’ll always love you.”_

_The holocube came to the end of the recording. Her father’s face froze in tableau. Reaching out to the image, Greta tried to touch him. “Dad” she whispered. “– I’m so alone.”_

_Greta sat in silence, contemplating the past as Fett watched from a distance. It was the first time in many years that he felt any sort of empathy for another sentient. Early on, Greta briefly mentioned that her father was dead, but she never spoke more about it. Now that he saw the longing in her eyes, he felt an understanding of the same kind of loss he had experienced long ago._

_“You are not alone,” he said slowly, startling her and surprising himself. Greta looked up, her brown eyes looking at him large and nervous. Immediately, she blushed, feeling ashamed for revealing closely guarded feelings before the bounty hunter._

_“What do you mean?” she asked, quietly. Her embarrassment manifested itself as fear in her body language. She shrank away from him and was unable to meet his visor. It was strange, then, when Boba Fett noticed it. She had never feared him like everyone else, and it unsettled him to realize how much he did_ not _want her to be afraid of him._

_“There are others who share your . . . sentiments,” he replied. He let out a breath, hardly audible from behind the helmet. He looked over at Greta, who was looking at him quizzically with the same penetrating look that somehow made him reveal more about himself than he allowed himself to do – ever. This same look was begging him to be vulnerable with her, and gods – damn it all – did it ever work._

_“I, too, lost my parents at a young age,” he admitted._

_There was a silence between them as both parties considered the monumental step they had taken, no matter how small it seemed._

_“I’m so sorry,” Greta said at last. He saw her body visibly relax, her eyes compelling him to go on._

_Fett cleared his throat. “Both of them murdered. Before my eyes.”_

_“How awful.”_

_Not being accustomed to being pitied, Boba Fett quickly deflected. “The galaxy is an unforgiving place. You move on, you survive,” he said, coldly._

_“But it seems fate dealt you a fortunate hand,” she replied thoughtfully.” You’ve become very successful in your trade. There must be some solace in this?”_

_Her words struck a sore point in Boba Fett. His parents were staunch Mandalorians, warriors who believed in tribal integrity and the sacredness of their war arts. Bounty hunting was a far cry from the warrior way. Not wanting to discuss this detail, Fett gave her a pragmatic answer. “You do what it takes to survive.”_

_Greta hummed to herself, rolling the holocube in her palm. “I suppose. I’ve tried to keep out of trouble and out of sight. I do my work and make no fuss. But, unlike so many who end up here, I have survived this palace much longer than anticipated.”_

_“You are . . . ,” he paused, “very good at what you do.”_

_A smile and a blush slowly spread across Greta’s face as she received his compliment._

_“Your father taught you well,” he continued._

_Greta’s smile faded as her thoughts wandered back to her father. “It wasn’t for this kind of life that he taught me. It would have killed him to see me like this. He wanted me to have a good life – a free life. And what have I to show for it? A prisoner in a filthy crime hub, guardianship of a strong-headed girl, and no hope for the future.”_

_Fett moved, closing in the distance between them until they were only inches apart. “He wanted you to survive. You have done what you could with your lot,” he said, not harshly. He was so close, she heard the nuances of his true voice past the metallic hiss of his helmet mic: rough, deep, yet surprisingly warm. Then, moving a segment of hair from her damp face, he added, “He would have been proud of you.”_

_Greta could only stare at her own reflection in his visor, unsure of what to make of all of this. Fett remembered the smile that crept across her lips as she allowed herself to receive his compliment._

_“Thank you,” she replied with a brightening light in her eyes. Her smile reached its full bloom, and the sight of it tugged deep beneath the Mandalorian armour. Her smile reminded him of so much lost – of home, family, of long-abandoned trust in others._

Then, as suddenly as the memory came, it slipped away, returning Fett’s consciousness to the darkness of the Sarlacc. But exiting the memory was painful and disorienting, like he had been hurled out of hyperdrive, cut open with his nerves exposed. 

As he collected his thoughts, Fett suddenly remembered Greta’s holocube hidden away in his utility belt, now strung on a new silver chain. Not long after their exchange on the observation deck, Fett had given Greta a chain so she could keep the holocube around her neck. That chain was broken now, snapped apart when he took her prisoner for Vader. It was the girl, Lethia, who gave him the cube after their last conversation in the palace. Before heading to join Jabba on the sail barge to see Solo and his friends thrown to the Sarlacc, Fett had found another chain and stashed away both in his belt until he would see Greta again.

Sensing his thoughts, the old woman spoke again. _You know how much she treasured that holocube – the memories within it. But do you know how much she treasured the chain you gave her? It gave her hope; it reminded her that someone in the present cared for her._

 _And yet,_ she hissed _, you betrayed her._

Sick of the mind games and manipulation – and knowing he was losing precious time, Fett growled, “That’s enough. You’ve invaded my privacy. _Violated_ my memories. What I do is for my own reasons only.”

_Oh, but there is more. So many layers of emotions you feel for her. It’s all quite fascinating, really. Do you know where she is, right now?_

“Yes.”

_And do you know what kind of fate you have sent her?_

No answer.

 _You have heard, but you do not really know what they do in these labs. Do you_ want _to know?_

There was only one thing Boba Fett did want to know. He bit his pride. “Tell me. Is she alive?”

The voice coughed in the darkness and answered enigmatically. _Yes, but not quite._

Boba Fett shook furiously in his confines. “What does that mean, hag? Tell me!”

 _Alive, but not in spirit,_ the old woman replied _. The girl you loved is different now. She can no longer be the same because of what you and they have done._

“What has happened to her?”

_Too horrible to tell. What men do to assert their power over women._

“No time for riddles, woman. Tell me.”

_They have made her suffer, but she survives. Her body has changed. Her mind, fragile – but she tenaciously holds on to who she is. One thing I am certain: She hates you._

“Then she would never forgive me,” he said, more to himself.

_Only she can answer that, Fett. However. I do know, that no matter how much she hates you, she also cannot stop loving you._

Boba Fett remained silent, taking in the woman’s words. Then, as though the anesthetic from the Sarlacc had loosened his speech, he muttered, “I would do anything to make it right.”

The old woman drew in a quick breath. _Would you?_ she asked.

Growing increasingly weary, Fett answered easily, “Yes. I love her. I need to save her. I can’t stay here.”

All of a sudden, the hum of the Sarlaac grew oppressingly quiet, as though a vacuum had sucked out all sound and air all around him. It was then that the crone’s voice grew soft, whispering quickly and with desperation. _Listen to me, Boba Fett. Now, listen to me.I tell you this, apart from the Sarlacc, bounty hunter. Though I have lived too long as a disembodied consciousness in this beast, I can remember what it was like to love. The Sarlacc, it wants to drug you into passive compliance. The anesthetic is taking hold. You still have your jetpack. It was damaged during your fall, but I can reconnect the broken wire. Use it. Use it before the Sarlacc hears me._

Boba Fett blinked. Inside the helmet, he saw the status reports brokenly come alive before his eyes. To his astonishment, his jetpack was back online.

 _If you want to save her, you must do so quickly. . ._ The voice continued, rasping and growing distant. Then silence again.

The swarm of voices of the Sarlacc returned. _We think you’ve conversed long enough with the old woman, Master Fett. We are growing hungry. We would like to taste more of you, to crack you open, like an egg._

The tentacle on his neck gripped again, and memories of the past flooded his mind once more before he could properly realign the jetpack. Fett began to feel the same strangling emotions of guilt, loss, love escalating. The tentacle gripped harder. The flood of emotions were so undistinguished, so torrential, that Fett’s body shook against his confines.

The Sarlacc walls were pulsing now, the tentacles squeezing harder around his body. It sighed in delight. _Yes, Fett,_ it moaned _. Your grief is delicious_.

Struggling to regain control, Boba Fett was held fast by the tentacles, feeling the essence of his very self being drained from him. “What are you doing to me?” he screamed.

 _Tearing you open_ , the Sarlacc replied, calmly. Whipping noises cracked in the darkness. The tentacles around him were thrashing. Concentrating fiercely, Boba Fett pulled up the commands on his visor to ignite the jetpack. He looked up, seeing a distant dot of light above him. He figured he had enough fuel; but how much strength he had left to survive this, he did not know.

With one command, the jetpack fired to life. The Sarlacc screamed, and the tentacles released him in shock. With his arm free, Fett grabbed his blaster and fired at the remaining tentacles threatening to tie him down. Then, at full power, Fett tore out of the great beast toward the distant opening at the top. Bursting through the air, he crash-landed into the sand with rib-cracking force.

All he could feel was burning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The answer to the question at the top: Certain elements of Boba’s predicament in the Sarlacc were inspired by J.D. Montgomery’s short story, “A Barve Like That” from Tales from Jabba’s Palace. The chilling character of the Sarlacc playing with its food, its ability to enter Fett’s mind and the collective consciousness of the eaten are Montgomery’s ideas, and not mine. The rest of the story is my own take. Hope you enjoyed it! It was my favorite to write.


	12. acid and scars

The voice of the Sarlaac would haunt Boba Fett for the rest of his life. No matter where he was or how long since his escape, he would always live with its voice deeply embedded into the fabric of his soul.

At present, Fett was trapped between waking and dreaming. He did not know how long he had been like this, as though he were submerged underwater and never being able to surface. Not long after crash-landing in the sand, Fett had passed out from the pain of burning. He thought he saw Greta again, but she disappeared. The voice of the Sarlaac echoed in his mind, but that, too, faded with his own weary consciousness. Then there were hands dragging him out of the desert. The drip of water. Somewhere cool and dark. It smelled like the palace, but it was too quiet. And then, nothing.

Without warning, he surfaced. A stinging sensation pulled him fully back to reality. Something was touching his raw, exposed skin. Likely it was the same hands from the desert – the salt in them – that burned his wounds, and his pride. How many days had he spent stripped of his armour and exposed for anyone to see?

Water wetted his lips. He opened his eyes.

A girl with pale skin and hair: Lethia, with a sponge in one hand, knife in the other. She pulled back slightly as she saw his eyes open. His eyes darted across the room, assessing the situation.

She had taken off his armour. That was the first thing he noticed. He saw it in a heap of singed and melted metal. Shaking from the pain of his broken body, Fett controlled himself from crying out. Even after the emotional plundering he was subjected to in the Sarlacc, Fett could still call on his iron-clad self-control. Narrowing his eyes, Fett now locked his gaze on Lethia, who held a familiar blade in front of her.

Watching her with his own eyes, and not from behind the visor, he saw bright red skin around her shoulders and slight redness across her forehead and nose. It looked like she had been in the sun for the first time in years, and he guessed the sunburn she received was a result of a lengthy effort to get his much-larger frame onto a barge by herself.

“You wanted to kill me last time,” he muttered between coughs. His lungs and throat were hoarse. “And now you save me.”

“What makes you think I won’t kill you now, the state you’re in?”

“You’ve lost your chance. I’m awake.”

Lethia stared at the man she had long wanted to kill for taking away the only family she had. It had only been several days since she pulled him out of the Dune Sea with acid-eaten armour caked with blood and sand – and had seen his face for the first time. The acid had eaten through to the skin on his neck so she had to pull off his helmet to access the area. It surprised her then that he was, despite her suspicions, actually human – with a number of scars lining his cold, stone-like face.

Finally, she put the knife down and, surprisingly, sat down on the cot where he was lying. “Yes, I had the opportunity to kill you. To leave you dying in the sand. To kill you here at your most vulnerable.” Her eyes never broke from his gaze. “But I couldn’t. Despite everything, despite what you did, you still love her.”

Fett broke eye contact and looked away. She continued. “You called out to her in your delirious state. You sounded so . . . sad.”

“A natural response to regret,” he said quietly, closing his eyes, feeling the pain begin to overwhelm him.

Lethia weighed his words carefully. She had only known him from a distance, but she knew enough to know that whatever he divulged about himself should never be taken lightly.

She gave him a long side glance. With a smirk, she prodded the back of his hand with a finger. “So you’re human after all.”

“Never said I wasn’t,” he said.

“But you mean it? You regret what you did?”

His breathing growing more and more ragged, Fett only closed his eyes and nodded once. He sat like this for so long that Lethia wasn’t sure if he had lost consciousness again.

Finally, he opened his eyes and commanded, “Tell me the extent of my injuries.”

Despite the steadiness in his voice, Lethia understood how much pain he was in. And it amazed her that he had not cried out in pain from the day he found him dying in the sand. He was a stubborn one; unwilling to die, unwilling to give up. No one, since her time in the palace, had she seen such resolve or tenacity. She shuddered inwardly; it frightened her to realize how much Boba Fett deserved to be feared.

“Nerve damage in your left hand; second-degree burns around your neck, chest and back – and everywhere else that was unarmored. Your ribs are broken and the worst of it is in your right leg. The acid’s gotten to deep tissue there. Seems like your left leg is fine, since it was already a prosthetic.”

Fett shifted on the cot, uncomfortable with Lethia discovering the truth about his amputated leg. “The med-droid said you are recovering quicker than expected for a human. Gene therapy, I presume?”

“I heal fast,” he said coldly.

“Your helmet,” she continued, “protected most of your face and head. Though with all your injuries, it’s amazing you’re alive.”

“I’m not easy to kill.”

“So they say.” The girl and the bounty hunter stared at each other in silence.

“How long have I been out?”

“Several days.”

He looked down at his arms and discovered a labyrinth of tubes snaking out from them. “Had to keep you hydrated while unconscious. If you’re up for it, I can ask the med-droid to take out the G-tube.”

Fett painfully raised himself on one elbow to look at the tube protruding from his stomach. Unable to bear the pain much longer, he lowered himself back on the cot and let out a deep breath. “You never did intend to kill me this time. You had other plans.”

Lethia nodded. “You’re right. I was going to make you take me to Greta. To help me find her.”

“And how did you plan on ‘making’ me?”

She shrugged. “Jabba’s sickbay has a bunch of interesting-looking drugs. In your state, it wouldn’t be hard to give some to you.” She slowly drew a capped syringe with a blue liquid in it. “The med-droid tells me this paralyzes a patient for a good while.”

Fett narrowed his eyes, then closed them as if tired of speaking. “You won’t need it,” he said. “I already intend on finding her – alone.”

“No deal,” she said, drawing closer with the syringe. “I come, or you don’t go anywhere.”

In a flash, Boba Fett grabbed her wrist and tore the syringe from her hand. Lethia’s eyes widened in fear as this time, he drew near with the needle. But before she could struggle from his grip, he dashed the syringe to the ground where it shattered into pieces.

He was now sitting fully upright on the cot and twisting Lethia’s wrist with an iron grip. Even helmetless, Boba Fett was still intimidating. “I go alone,” he growled. When he released her arm, he lay back on the cot, breathing heavily.

Rubbing her wrist, Lethia asked, “And what will you do when you find her?”

“Make things right.”

Boba Fett’s words echoed in the dark chamber as Lethia searched his eyes for evidence of his sincerity. His eyes, like the mask he had always worn, revealed nothing. But, as she already knew – any utterance from this man was as good as true.

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said quietly, still rubbing her wrist while keeping her distance. “But what if she won’t have anything to do with you?”

The bounty hunter dropped his gaze to the floor, his body language radiating shame. Lethia was taken aback for a moment, seeing him truly vulnerable for the first time. When he spoke, it was barely a whisper. “Doesn’t matter, as long as she’s safe.”

Fett closed his eyes, slightly gasping for air. It seemed as though the pain was peaking. Lethia, assured of his intentions, quietly opened his hand and wrapped it around the pain med controls. “Then I promise I won’t try to hurt you. Get better soon. Who knows how long they’ll keep her alive.”


	13. darkness

Killing Ascii was as instinctual as breathing. She didn’t even remember doing it: The moment she wanted him dead, he was already lying in a pool of his own blood, his hands strewn across the room in a smear. But it wasn’t _him_. Though she’d never seen Boba Fett’s face, she knew the man who had been torturing her for months was the imposter. She remembered Fett’s scent keenly. This was a clean jumpsuit, lacking the acrid musk of blaster fire, the rot of the palace, Tatooine, dust.

Her victory over her tormentor, however, was short. The lab doors opened and a flood of stormtroopers charged through.

A scientist over the speakers barked, “Subject! Stand down!” Greta, still high on adrenaline, ignored the command and charged the troopers. Six of them, down in a few seconds. But she wasn’t ready for what came next, the strangling force that crippled her. She fell, awake, watching as Vader’s Crimson Guard took her down with a wave of their hands.

* * *

Greta woke to utter darkness and pain. Her head was pounding, every muscle felt like they had been snapped in two. And the smell – it smothered her senses, this heavy blanket of rot and waste. Groggily, she probed the floor, the walls feeling nothing but long, deep grooves in both. Feeling around the corners, she found no cracks, no joints – nothing that could tell her where she was, no light to help her see. “How do I get out of this one?” she wondered aloud.

A voice, heckling, startled her. “You don’t.” She spun around, her body ready to defend herself. The voice coughed, and she realized it wasn’t coming from in her own cell. She followed the noise to the far end of the cell, finding a small grate. Kneeling down to it, she asked, “Where am I?”

“Place to die,” the voice answered, with a rasping cough. “Can’t you smell it?”

“Who are you?”

“Was personal cook to Colonel Zaruk. Tried to poison him.”

“Are you with the Alliance?”

“Gods, no,” the voice replied with a hoarse laugh. “Just didn’t like him.”

Greta leaned up against the wall as she sat on the cold ground. “You people who serve the Empire – you’re all crazy. I’m surprised it’s survived for so long.”

“It’ll tear itself to pieces one day. Guess I won’t be around to find out.”

Greta put her head in her hands, trying to soothe the throbbing in her skull. “When do they come? I mean, to kill us?”

The voice was silent at first, only wheezing. “They don’t.”

“What do you mean? How long have you been here?”

The voice was silent, only wheezing. “Dunno. Long time. No one comes. We get no food, no water. You get the picture.”

Greta felt the dread in her gut grow as she understood his meaning: the grooves – the scratches – on the wall, the smell of decay.

“Not how you thought you’d die, eh?”

“No,” Greta answered quietly. She fingered the empty space between her throat and her collarbone, thinking of her missing holocube of her father. Its absence only made her angry, only made her think of the one who had stolen everything from her. 

* * *

How long she had been in the cell, Greta didn’t know. It felt like weeks had passed. In the darkness, she kept groping along the walls, trying to find some kind of weakness in the cell. But there was none.

It wasn’t entirely true that no one ever came. Footsteps came through the corridor beyond her cell, the occasional clang of a metal door, a heavy rustling. “The dead ones,” the voice next door whispered. “Come to collect.”

She tried not to lose resolve, but after each long, dark day, Greta began to give up. She spent her days counting the grooves in the walls. Then after she had counted them all a hundred times, she began to make her own. 

And now, in the eternal darkness, Greta lay starving and shivering on the cold cell floor. She drifted in and out of semi-consciousness, from dream to dream. One moment, she was with her father, the next burning in the sand under Tatooine’s twin suns. Lethia had come to give her water, but disappeared. Then, it was night among blue-cast dunes. Boba Fett, with Vader’s dark voice, offering her a knife, telling her to kill him. On and on the dreams went until her stomach would gnaw hard enough to jolt her momentarily into consciousness.

It was in these brief moments of wakefulness that she would despair that she had not yet died. Even the voice next door had stopped talking. The footsteps had come for him, too.

She fell asleep again under the haze of deep hunger and thirst, wondering what they did with her eye, if they kept it in a glass jar or had just thrown it out like a scrap of meat. The thought twisted into a dream, picturing Jabba the Hutt popping the eye into his mouth, crunching it like a piece of candy. His usual palace retinue was there, the dancing girls fearfully executing their moves across the floor, the roar of the Rancor beneath. Lethia was there, pouring water for wealthy clientele, but no sign of the one she used to look for. The weight of a hand landed on her shoulder and she turned, finding herself face to visor with Boba Fett. She backed up, taking a step away but he took her hand, told her to stay. Reaching up with his other hand, he unlatched the helmet but stopped. He looked up. She followed his gaze. The cave was shaking, small bits of ceiling rained down on the palace. Then, large chunks of rock began to fall. Fett grabbed her hand and was pulling her to safety. But it was too late. A loud groan, and the mountain above the cave split in two and the ceiling caved. Somewhere, in the distance, she heard Fett call her name. But she couldn’t see him. All she could see was blinding light.


	14. payback

The Deathstar was going to blow. Boba Fett was well aware of the urgency as he forced open the cell door. He called out to her, but she didn’t respond. Greta was lying in the corner of the cell, face pressed up against a filthy grate. Thankfully, the sensor readings on his HUD showed she was still alive, but just barely. Quickly, he gave her a dose of a concentrated bacta serum and epinephrine.

Explosions erupted deep within the Deathstar and the walls shook. Fett knew the Rebels were getting the upper hand and it wouldn’t be long before it was going to blow. He had to get Greta out of here and fast.

But he didn’t realize just how fast he had to act. Within seconds, Greta had already charged him, throwing them both out of the cell with surprising force. The look on her face was wild, changed. And under the dim light of the hallway, he saw a long scar along her forehead leading to a cybernetic eye.

“I killed you . . . cut your hands off!” she screamed, hitting him with blinding force. Even through his armor, he felt the blows to his solar plexus and the sensitive areas burned from his encounter with the Sarlacc. “Why won’t you die?”

It surprised him how quick she was – and how strong. The last time he had wrestled with her, she didn’t nearly have the force she did now, nor the skill. She dodged his attempts to hold her with ease and came at him with an aggressiveness he had never seen in her before. In his coming to the Deathstar, he hadn’t counted on having to put up such a fight. He had left Tatooine in bad shape, knowing he had enough strength to fend off measly stormtroopers. But this – hit after hit – Fett actually began to worry Greta could kill him before he had a chance to explain. The concoction he had given her wasn’t even supposed to affect her for another couple hours.

It took most of his strength to finally get a hold of her arms, pulling her close to him. “It’s _me_ , Greta. We have to get out of here. I’m trying to _save_ you.” Greta stopped struggling, the fog of her dreams leaving her. The voice like gravel, the smell of blaster fire, the slightly metallic, earthy scent. Her pupils widened. It was _him_.

The Deathstar rumbled around them, then jolted violently, throwing them both in different directions. Smoke began filling the holding cells.

“Save me? Where were you when they did this to me?” she hissed, getting to her feet.

“Probably in the Sarlacc. Being digested,” he growled.

“Leave it to you to survive even that.” A metal crossbar from the ceiling dislodged, crashing between them. Boba Fett staggered toward her, trying to close the distance.

“The girl, Lethia,” he said. “She helped me.”

“She should have killed you while she had the chance.”

“She tried.”

Greta’s eyes narrowed angrily, her voice strangled. “If you’ve hurt her . . .”

“She’s safe. I promised her I would find you.”

“Promised?” she spat, anger once again welling up inside. Fett rounded the fallen pieces of ceiling, approaching her slowly like she was a wounded animal. “Your promises are worth nothing.”

He caught her arm, pulling her back. She fought against his hold, and slammed her elbow into his diaphragm. “You’ve found me,” she growled near his earpiece. “But you’ll never use me again.” Fett doubled over, as the more severe Sarlacc burns on his side cracked open. He sucked in a deep breath against the pain. Seizing the opportunity, she delivered several sharp kicks to his injured side. He fell to his hands and knees, gasping. She closed in on him, ready to strike again, when she saw dark liquid running down the edge of his helmet. It dripped on the white tiled floor, forming a red pool near his hands.

The rage that was driving her subsided. She stared at the blood, unsure of herself and her resolve to destroy him. She had never _seen_ anything human about him before. She knelt down beside him and held out her hand to touch the edge of his helmet, the blood running slowly, some of it running down his neck guard. Though something within her called out for revenge, her heart refused to go any further. It was as though her old self was returning from watching the bloodshed, her conscience now able to control her again. She blinked and looked down. Fett had put his hand in hers, dropping something small and hard in her palm. It was her holocube, strung on a new chain.

“Greta, I’m sorry,” he said quietly, through labored breathing. “For everything.”

Greta stared at the holocube in her hand, absently touching the implant in her right eye. The throbbing in her head grew quiet.

Fett reached up and touched her face. “I can’t undo what I did to you. But I can fix this,” he said, a thumb tracing the hard edge of the implant.

She looked at his visor, searching his eyes and finding only her own, miserable reflection. Still, she said nothing, her lips forming a hard line.

“Please. We have to go.”

Greta’s face was impassive. As the Deathstar began to groan and shake with more violence, she only stared at him, clutching the holocube in her fist. She got to her feet and backed away.

More smoke flooded the hallway as Fett struggled to stand, the pain of his blistered skin overwhelming him. He tried to close the distance between them, but she continued to back away until he could only see her faintly, shaking her head, with sorrow in her face. Another explosion and more smoke. She was gone.


	15. restitution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last and final chapter to this angsty love story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy May the 4th! May the Force Be With You! :)

The first time he noticed her, Fett saw her laboring in Jabba’s shipyard dismantling an old engine with her bare hands. The woman had nothing to work with, but she worked hard; her hands bled, but she kept at it.

That night, she had settled into an obscure spot in the audience chamber with a drink she had worked hard to bargain for at the bar. Fett happened to be standing nearby, but she hadn’t noticed. She didn’t even know who he was. He watched her, sipping the dark ale and watching the events unfold, looking away when the dancers were thrown to the Rancor. At one point, she noticed him watching her and offered him the chair opposite her. “Please, have a seat,” she said. He hesitated, but agreed. It was strange, he noted, that she didn’t seem to fear him.

  
“I’ve seen you here often,” she said. “You must be very good at what you do.” He only angled his helmet in brief acknowledgement, then steered the conversation away from his line of work. He flirted with the idea of seeing what it would be like to talk to this girl without his bounty hunter self between them.

“As you must be to avoid _that_ ,” he pointed to the still-open stage trap in the center of the room.

The young woman shrugged and looked down at her drink. “I’ve been lucky.”

“You don’t survive a place like this on _luck_ ,” he replied. Greta eyed the stranger, believing him to be as shrewd as he looked.

“True,” she said, after taking a sip of her drink. “I’ve had to shoulder my way for this position. You can imagine what happens to female slaves who are brought here.”

“How did you convince the Hutt to take you on as a mechanic?” Fett leaned in, his arm propped against the table. Even in this casual conversation, Greta felt his gaze intensely locked on her. She wasn’t afraid; she was intrigued. She mirrored his body language, leaning toward him as well.

“Interesting story,” she said with a smirk.

“Entertain me.”

Greta studied the impassive T-shaped visor. She wondered what he looked like under the helmet and if he ever removed it. She wasn’t about to ask.

“Well,” she began, “The Hutt was running out of slaves from, you know, feeding them to his pet. When I came along, he wanted more dancers – mostly Twi’leks – but the trader I was with had none. In fact, I was the only female that day.” Greta wetted her lips and continued. “Jabba wasn’t impressed with my looks, but he was bored, so he bought me for an afternoon’s worth of entertainment. But before he could chain me up, I insulted his shipyard and told him what an utter disgrace it was – that the Hutts on Naal Hutta had glorious shipyards that commanded the respect of other empires across the galaxy.”

Boba Fett tilted his helmet slightly. “You’ve been to Naal Hutta?”

Greta winked and tipped her drink at him. “Nope. But Jabba loves flattery, as you probably know.”

“I do,” he chuckled quietly.

“So, I told him that a well-respected crime lord like himself needed a head mechanic to clean up the shipyard, get it organized and running efficiently. When he didn’t believe I could do it, I just said, ‘Fine. Be a slob like the galaxy believes Hutts to be’.”

Boba Fett chuffed in disbelief. “You called Jabba a _slob_?”

“Well, it worked,” she shrugged. “He was so put out by the thought that he appointed me as his head mechanic right away. It was a risky move, but the odds weren’t in my favor anyway.”

Fett shook his head. She was smart – damn smart –if a little foolhardy. Here was someone who could look after herself – a survivor – like him. He wondered how she would react if she knew who he was. They had never exchanged names, but he liked this conversation much more than he was willing to admit. It was the first time in years he’d let his guard down around someone else.

For a good while, they talked. Fett learned that she was obsessed with ships and all the ways to upgrade them. She talked animatedly about ship models, parts and ways to make them better. At one point, she paused to ask if she was boring him. He assured her that she was not.

“Take a look at my ship sometime,” he said. “I’d be interested in your opinion.”

What he didn’t count on was her reaction to his invitation. When she smiled, Fett couldn’t help noticing how radiant she looked. The smile was without malice or hidden intent, but expressed simply the enthusiasm of someone very genuinely interested in working for him.

“Absolutely,” she said excitedly. “You mentioned it was a remodeled Firespray-class patrol craft?”

Fett nodded. “She’s fast, but she could be faster.”

A fire lit in her eyes, an indication that Greta was already thinking about what upgrades she might suggest. Fett smiled beneath the helmet.

“What do you need the speed for?” she asked.

He paused before deciding to share what he had been hiding. “My work. I’m a bounty hunter.”

Greta narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. _There it was._

“What planet are you from?” she asked in a low, quiet voice.

Fett answered rigidly, “Mandalore.”

For the first time that night, Boba Fett saw the familiar look of paralyzing fear overcome his companion. She swallowed thickly, the color draining from her face. 

Pushing herself away from the table, she stuttered, “I-I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“To have wasted your time – to have been so presumptuous. I didn’t know.”

“There is nothing to be sorry about. Meet me in the shipyard tomorrow. I look forward to your recommendations.” With a wave of his hand, Fett ordered her another drink, excused himself and left.

* * *

Boba Fett thought of Greta those years ago, her curious eyes peering behind her long, brown hair. Now, on this small planet, he kept his watch while hidden in shadows, observing the woman who, over three years ago, could not then forgive him.

He had escaped the second Deathstar, just as he was certain Greta had also escaped. But finding her after the explosion was another matter. It was chaos everywhere as the galaxy strove to re-order itself after the fall of the Empire. Greta had disappeared entirely. She left absolutely no tracks, and Boba Fett, for the first time, was confounded on a hunt.

Finally, after tireless searching, the little he had to go on brought him to a planet on the far reaches of the Outer Rim, to a small village on the eastern continent. And he watched her now, standing outside a small stone house and calling after someone down the street. She looked well with the sun’s glow on her face. He noticed, too, that her cybernetic eye was gone, and in its place, a patch covering the socket. She stood in the street searching for the one she was calling with a smile on her lips.

A small giggle came from behind a pile of crates. Greta stalked around it, and lunged, causing an eruption of giggles from behind. She came out with a dusty little toddler, who had buried his face into her shirt as she tickled him ruthlessly.

Boba Fett leaned in closer, curious about the child and his relationship to Greta.

“No more!” cried the boy, laughing.

“Oh yes, little man,” Greta replied, holding him close. “You are doomed!”

The child squirmed and squealed as he fought his way out of her grasp. Finally, she let go and he toddled a few steps away, only to come running back with his arms in the air. “More!”

“A glutton for punishment, Corin,” she laughed. “I’m afraid I’ve gotten you too riled up for bed.”

The child tugged at her pant leg still. “Up!”

Greta scooped him up in his arms and kissed his ruddy cheeks, her hair falling over his little face. She whispered something inaudible to him and sent him inside the house. Before joining him, she stood, staring up at the sky with a look of contentment on her face.

* * *

Greta was coming down the stairs from putting Corin to bed, feeling the weight of night blanketing across the planet. She often felt a kind of foreboding at sunset, as the oncoming darkness often brought on the awful memories of the lightless cell in the Deathstar. She felt night’s oppression now, as she gazed out her window. All was silent: Corin’s cheerful voice gone and the day’s tasks on hold till the next. It was times like these that her heart admitted its deep loneliness and ached for the things she had lost.

She thought of Lethia, far away on Tatooine, running her own moisture farm as her father once did. It made her glad to think that she had found happiness at least, having married a local Bantha rancher, and living as a free person. As for Greta, she had her quiet life here and her own shop. But she was alone, save for Corin and his grandmother Kass.

Dear, meddling Kass had tried to encourage her to find a partner, even going as far as setting her up with local bachelors. But Greta found no interest in any of them. It was probably best, she thought, considering the kind of baggage – the secrets – she carried.

The sky parted to reveal a cluster of winking stars. She gazed at them, wondering at the vastness of the galaxy and where in all of it _he_ was. Though she had left him badly injured on a nearly-destroyed Deathstar, she knew Boba Fett would survive. He was out there somewhere.

It had been over three years, but his plea for her forgiveness still lived in her thoughts. She had had time, in this new life, to reconsider the last time they met. He had gone back on a job he had taken - from Darth Vader no less – to apologize, to ask for her forgiveness. She also remembered how he refused to fight back, even though she almost killed him. She remembered his voice, too, harsh as it ever was, but lined with remorse. It almost seemed like a dream, to think that Boba Fett, the most dangerous bounty hunter in the galaxy, would go through such lengths just to admit that he was wrong. But it had happened. She touched the glass-like holocube hanging from her neck, fingers drifting to the silver chain he had given her.

“Good to see you haven’t lost it,” a voice behind her said.

Greta recognized the voice instantly. She turned to see Boba Fett appear from the shadows of her night-darkened home, flecks of light glinting off his visor.

“So you found me,” she said quietly.

“You weren’t easy to find,” he admitted. “It was only a matter of time.”

Greta approached him slowly, wrapping her robe more tightly around herself. “You don’t give up easy, do you?”

“I never give up.”

She was close now, close enough to see all the dents and scratches on his infamous helmet. Close enough to look at her own reflection in his visor. Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you here, Fett? You know what happened the last time we met.”

“I want to talk. That’s all.”

“Talk? You’ve never been a man of many words, Boba.”

“Words, no. Action yes.”

Greta’s lips pressed into a hard, thin line. Slowly, she reached up and touched the t-shaped visor where his mouth would be, running her fingers down the hard edge. “Then _show_ me. Let me see you,” she said, her voice trembling from holding back the intensity of her feelings.

Cautiously, he placed both hands on the sides of his helmet. “There isn’t much to see,” he warned, almost a whisper. In that moment, she heard trepidation in his voice and wondered if the Sarlacc had taken the whole of his face.

After all that had happened, Greta could not look at him. She heard the hiss of his helmet unlatching, then saw his helmet lowered to her view down by his belt. It was strange to see it apart from his shoulders, like she was beholding a decapitated head.

The air was thick with emotion. Neither of them spoke, but the silence was pregnant with all that was unspoken. Finally, Fett spoke. “Would you look at me, Greta?” he asked, softly. His voice was different from how it sounded through the helmet mic. It was rich, warm and full. Slowly, she looked up to face him.

She was looking at a stranger. All these years, she had identified him by his signature helmet, the t-shaped visor that was his face. This man with burn scars across more than half his face, and piercing eyes that searched hers, was foreign.

As though he felt too heavily her eyes on him, he looked down, searching for words. “Greta,” he began, “My face is a map of my weaknesses. These scars tell my moments of failure, which I show to no one but you. My whole life I strove to erase all evidence of human frailty, but I’ve already shown you how weak I really am – to be manipulated by Vader through my _damned_ ambition. To have let you suffer, when I should have protected you.”

He then lifted his eyes to meet hers. Her face was impassive, grim. He continued. “You don’t have to forgive me, Greta. I know how much I’ve hurt you.”

“Then why bother coming all this way?”

They were a hair’s breadth away, but he kept his hands by his side, unable to touch her for fear that she would recoil. He saw the hurt and anger in her eyes, and he wondered if it was futile coming all this way. He sighed, and held her gaze intently, knowing this might be the last time he would ever see her again.

“Because I love you, Greta. I have always loved you.”

Greta stared, mouth parted, and unsure how to respond. Part of her was distrustful of him; another side of her wanted to believe him desperately. She lifted her hand to touch him, like she needed to believe that he was really there. She touched the dark hair at his temple, ran her fingers down his scarred face and stopped at his lips.

And it was then that she surprised him. She met his lips with hers, first gently, then more urgently. Fett returned the kiss, pulling her closer to him. How they had both longed for this moment from the day they met, even after what he did and all the years that followed. Slowly and reluctantly, Fett pulled away, a questioning look on his face.

“The child – upstairs – is he yours?”

Greta smiled wickedly. “What if he is?”

“I’d have to ask if you’re still with his father,” he replied somberly.

She touched his face again and smiled. “He’s my neighbor’s grandson. I look after him when his grandmother works late at the spice factory. Corin’s parents are both dead.”

“I saw you outside with him. You care for him very much.”

“Yes. He’s the closest thing I have to a family.”

“You’ve always wanted that, a family.”

“As much as you didn’t want the liability of family ties,” she answered, knowingly.

“That was before. Things have changed.”

“Have they?”

Examining the helmet in his hands, Boba Fett looked at his own visor, thinking. “Seeing you with the boy . . . I was jealous of the man who had given you the child. Who shared in your happiness.”

Fett had his head bowed as he spoke, his eyes concealed by the shadows of his brow. Greta took the helmet from him and set it down on a nearby table. Turning back to him, she wore the same smile she had given him during their first conversation at the palace.

“You want that with me?”

Fett’s dark eyes shone with intensity. “Yes.”

“And if I don’t want anything to do with you?” she tested.

Fett’s face visibly fell after her last question. “I leave. And you never have to see me again.”

Greta’s lips pressed into a thin line when she saw his expression. Only minutes had passed since she first saw his face, but her years of moments spent with him and reading his body language told Greta that she was watching Boba Fett’s heart break. Oh, how she loved him! And yet how his choices destroyed what they had. _Would I be able to trust him again?_ She wondered.

As if reading her mind, he whispered, “Please. Let me earn your trust again.” His voice sounded strangled, his face crestfallen. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

It took Greta a moment to realize that he was holding her gently by the elbow, like he had done a hundred times before. _Their secret touch._ Greta smiled at the memory, tucking the same hand under his elbow in return.

“Then earn it,” she whispered.

It was Fett’s turn to smile. She watched his lips curve upward as he sighed in relief. He took her face into his hands and leaned forward, touching his forehead to hers.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, as he brought his lips to hers. She returned the kiss eagerly, eventually planting them on various places on his face.

As she brought her lips down his neck, she lingered by his ear and whispered, “I forgive you.”

He received it with a slow nod, and she buried her face into his neck, taking in his warm, earthy scent. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. It didn’t matter that she felt his armor, hard and jagged between them. They were together: no walls, no masks to keep them apart. They stayed like this for a while, feeling peace for the first time in years and - most importantly - the joy of finally finding in each other what they had lost years ago: _Home_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Thanks for reading! I enjoyed revisiting this work and fleshing out more dialogue over the past couple of weeks. 
> 
> I remember rushing to tie up the ending, so I always felt there could be more to this chapter. This time, I fleshed out the first conversation Fett and the OC have and paced the resolution between them a little better. 
> 
> I am bored in isolation so I might start another fic starring Mando, Din Djarin. Got prompts? Leave me a comment! <3


End file.
